


A Strange Person Who Makes Me Flutter

by Aangvatar



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Office, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mention of alcohol, Non-Linear Narrative, Romance, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, high school sweethearts, past toxic relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:08:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aangvatar/pseuds/Aangvatar
Summary: There are exactly two times when everything moves in slow-motion in Hyunjin’s life.The third time must be now, as Seungmin slowly hauls himself off from his back and treads towards Minho single-mindedly like it is all in his mind.All things are blurring and numbing, except the excruciating loss of warmth from his body and the lonely lines of Seungmin’s back.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin & Kim Seungmin, Hwang Hyunjin/Kim Seungmin, Kim Seungmin & Seo Changbin, Kim Seungmin/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 14
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Let me first establish, that I very much love Lee Minho. 
> 
> Also, the initial working title was Day & Night from Jung Seung Hwan Start-up OST because the song made me cry but then I got stuck up with John Park Foolish Love so I guess that was that.

"Maybe we really shouldn't have come, Seung" Hyunjin murmurs when Minho, sitting on the single old leather sofa right across them, places purposeful little nips on blonde-haired Jisung, who's perking on that armrest – like a fucking show – with his stupid sparkling eyes drill its way to Seungmin's.

There's a flick of silence and Hyunjin looks over his shoulder to study his reaction.

Seungmin's lips shut into a tight line, visible frown taking place between his eyebrows — and this is not that annoyed frown that he sports whenever Hyunjin or Felix keep acting like babies and he is the disappointed mother— no, because this is the frown that Hyunjin has recognized, has grown accustomed to (unfortunately), since the past few months which is always prompted and reserved for the same person.

Lee _fucking_ Minho.

"It's fine Hyunjin" Seungmin replies quietly and takes another sip of the punch from the red paper cup in his clutch. But Hyunjin does not miss the way his grip on the kitchen counter grows a tad bit tighter like his legs are going to give way and Hyunjin mentally prepares himself to catch him, but cold hand clasps on Hyunjin's arm instead.

"Go and see people, Hyunjin" Seungmin straightens himself up.

"But..."

"It's your party," Seungmin reassures, "This party is for you"

Hyunjin tries to berate but a pleading squeeze on his arm stops him. "Look for me when you're done. I'll probably get shit-faced or whatever, but before you say anything..." He pouts, "Just...let me this one time, please"

Hyunjin wouldn't, could never ever denies him when he begs like that, so he lets him go after he gets Seungmin to promise him to be safe, please and don't go anywhere I'll look for you as soon as possible, and watches as he makes his beeline towards the table flocking full with drinks and snacks.

When Seungmin reaches safely at the check-point and Minho shows no hint of getting anywhere nearby his best friend, he decides to fulfil his part of the promise — greets everyone who has come to toast for their university swimming team win (even defeated the last year champion, Konkook University) on the national finale last week.

Chan, the team captain has been the host for this party, and being the social butterfly he is, he sure is inviting too many people. While Hyunjin does not really hate parties, he secretly wishes that Chan would someday ditch Minho and roommate-ing with someone else more tolerable.

It's for Seungmin, he concludes, but not even the voice at the back of his mind at least pretend to agree with him as they scream back, asshole who are you kidding?

Hyunjin may just really hates the snob Minho and whatever that chains Seungmin to him.

He first makes way towards Chan and Felix who are chatting animatedly (Felix moves a lot and his eyes keep changing sizes while Chan laughs out clapping like a seal) while whisking up self-commentaries as they watch a group of sophomores playing beer pong near the entrance of the apartment like an intensely terrific game in the world.

"Hyunjinie!" Felix, the first one to notice him immediately pulls him in his signature bone-crushing hug, lolling him from side to side.

"Don't kill him, Lix" Chan reprimands but does zero even when Hyunjin writhes, pleading with his eyes under the elder's arms. Instead, he cackles cheerfully like he's watching another episode of The Office.

They chat a bit after that, mostly just Chan takes upon the role of an embarrassing proud dad of the group (which as you guess, the non-ending flustering praises that makes Hyunjin red up to his ears and he swears he wants to hide under the table) and Felix's grievances of having to lead the monthly gathering of the overseas students for the term, without the president of the club as Chan prepares for the tournament, while breezily slips a threat to kill Chan and buries him with his laptop if he does not stop slacking after this.

(Hyunjin thinks he just misses to have Chan around, but both of them are smiling so delightfully wide that he decides to tone it down and saves the sass for another time)

An alumnus who was in the swimming team a year before (Brian, Hyunjin thinks his name is) enters the house and suddenly the whole living room goes rowdy.

"Duty calls. Gotta go," Chan excuses himself, briefly placing a peck on Felix's cheek.

Felix must have been so used to it that he doesn't even blush a pink.

When the two are left on their own, he pulls Hyunjin to the side and whispers close to his ear, "Seungmin…?"

"He's with me"

"What?" Felix hisses with a questioning set of glares at Hyunjin. "And you leave him alone? I swear Hyunjin, Minho practically licks Jisung's face!"

Two emotions pass Hyunjin at that time.

First; He should run and get Seungmin now.

Second; Why does everyone think what Minho does matters to Seungmin?

"He's not a child, Lix! He's just getting drinks and get drunk like everyone else!"

"We both know Seungmin is a child when it comes to Minho!" Felix raps through gritted teeth, and for a moment he takes a deep breath before he goes on.

There's a sad glint in his eyes as he says, "He's not the same Seungmin anymore"

Those six words grate at Hyunjin’s nerve, and even if he does realise that he can never say it out loud. Because he trusts Seungmin and he knows he can bring him back. The confident, steady and proud Seungmin. The pillar, the one who does not give in or conform to other people.

But he knows Felix cares, probably more than he gives him credit for, so he softens his tone as he speaks out, "I'll take care of him. I'll keep him safe"

As if his voice carries away to the living room, loud yells that entail _yay_ and _come on, go!_ erupt, followed shortly by a gruff _get off me, you oaf!_ that positively sounds like Seungmin and Jeongin soaks all the tension between the two men.

"Seems like he is in good hands" Felix tilts his head and cracks out a smile.

From where they stand, Hyunjin glances at the mop of black hair on Jeongin's back and nods.

Yeah, maybe tonight is not all that bad.

*

"Hyung..." Jeongin calls out when Hyunjin scoots closer to where he and Seungmin are seated in.

Slouched and wasted in the comfort of an old couch slightly away from the remaining commotion in the living room. Most of the chaos has ceased compared to the earlier hours of the party and it is pretty lifeless now that the half-sober and knocked out students are lying down haphazardly in the space.

Seungmin included, with his eyes barely open as he hums songs which lyrics even to Hyunjin's ears are terribly jumbled up together.

Jeongin however, is sober enough to nod at his way and he ruffles his hair affectionately, thanking him in between for keeping Seungmin safe.

"He's my friend too Hyung," Jeongin protests as he slaps away his hands and turns at now softly snoring Seungmin.

There is a moment of hesitation as he keeps his eyes on him, and Hyunjin feels something vaguely like a Deja Vu. An ominous feeling rises in his pit and he mentally prepares for something akin to what happened with Felix, but Jeongin rises to his feet instead, albeit a little bit wobbly.

"Gotta go now. Have class tomorrow" He says lightly.

"Yeah... " Hyunjin squeezes his hand once, "Thanks, Innie. I'll buy you some coffee soon"

"Some scones won't hurt too though"

Hyunjin kicks him in his calf, "Yeah, yeah brat. Get home safe"

"You too." Jeongin pats him on his shoulder and left with a small smile which meaning Hyunjin could not decipher.

Why do all his friends have to be so cryptic sometimes?

*

It turns out that night is just as bad as Hyunjin dreads because Minho does come near his best friend after all.

They are shuffling towards the door, his hand around the younger’s waist and Seungmin’s arm hooks above his shoulder when they are stopped in their track by a warm hand yanking him away from Seungmin.

Hyunjin glares up to the perpetrator, “What do you think you are you doing?”

“Leave him here” Minho replies, not bothering to meet his eyes as he tries to pry all of Seungmin away from Hyunjin, waking him up in the middle of it.

His eyes open wide as soon as he manages to take in, as in what his fuddled state allows, what happens around him.

There’s a stab of prickly pain Hyunjin feels when that beautiful eyes glint with longing and desperation.

How much do you love him to look like that? After everything that happened?

Hyunjin tucks away the thought and steels, “Stop it. He’s drunk”

When Minho does not stop, he snags his hands off his best friend.

“I say stop”

“He’s my boyfriend!” Minho hisses. “For fuck sake, Hyunjin, leave us alone!”

Minho’s harsh voice carries away through the whole space. Seungmin flinches in Hyunjin’s arms, his hands shiver when he grasps him for leverage but maintain his eyes on the floor the whole time.

A confusion, or hurt, flashes in Minho’s eyes and Hyunjin takes that chance to bring Seungmin behind him.

“Seungmin…baby, come on. You know why I did that, right?”

There is no single alcohol in his system but Hyunjin feels like puking. He already does not like the direction this is going.

“Minho, you kissed Jisung like fucking porn in front of everyone! What kind of boyfriend does that?”

A beat of silence, then Minho with a cocked eyebrow and an amused smirk, redirects his anger at Seungmin as he snarls, “So this is it? You want to go home with this prick?”

That throws water on him and Seungmin stiffens in his place, slowly lifting his gaze to meet Minho’s eyes.

With gentler coos, like an adult who’s playing tricks on innocent children, Minho prompts, “This is it, Seungmin? You want to leave now? You don’t want to fix this?”

“Stop!” Hyunjin growls, shoving Minho away when he takes a tentative step closer but all is in vain for at the exact moment he wipes out the snobbish grin off his face and replaces it with a gentle smile – the smile that Seungmin swears make him so sure that Minho is the one, Hyunjin knows he’s fighting a losing battle.

Furious throbs pulses in his heart, his breathing feels so harsh and desperate when he watches the way Seungmin stares at Minho – completely enthralled, trapped in everything that is Minho that he cannot even see the maleficent lurks in the elder’s eyes.

Hyunjin wants to scream for everything to stop.

For Seungmin to stop looking at Minho like he carries stars and moon and constellations.

For Minho to stop ripping off everything that is Seungmin to a lifeless doll.

As if he hears him, Minho whispers the last low blow, “You don’t want to fix us?”

*

There are exactly two times when everything moves in slow-motion in Hyunjin’s life.

Hyunjin was in the first year of high school when it first happened. He was fetched home during the fifth period of school and brought to the hospital.

“Your grandma passed away this morning” – was what they told him in the car. Then in the ward, with his parents around him, he slowly took down the white cloth that covered his deceased grandmother’s face.

Everything blurs and everything numbs, except the quiet sobs of his mother and the coldness of the cloth in his hand.

The second time was when Hyunjin was laying down on his bed with Seungmin by his side. Seungmin was retelling him a story – which must have been ridiculously amusing (because Seungmin never laughs that hard while repeating a story) but Hyunjin can’t really focus on what the story was all about.

Because at that moment, everything blurs and everything numbs, except the crescents of his eyes and the ringing of his laughs.

The third time must be now, as Seungmin slowly hauls himself off from his back and treads towards Minho single-mindedly like it is all in his mind.

All things are blurring and numbing, except the excruciating loss of warmth from his body and the lonely lines of Seungmin’s back.

“Min...” Hyunjin calls out with the remainder of strength he has left. Desperation ties in the nickname he’s so fond of even he himself feels desperate, pathetic even.

Seungmin halts in his stride to finally turns to face him – to fucking finally look at him.

The lighting of the entryway above them is dim, as it should be when only one of the three suspended LED lamps work. There was a time when they gathered at this place, sipping beers and eating pizzas. Hyunjin jumped all over the couch to catch Jeongin when he played ugly jokes on him, Minho pulling Felix in a headlock as Seungmin shook his head in mock-disappointment and Chan chuckled hearty laughs. It must have not been that long because he still remembered Seungmin nagged at Minho to change the lamp (it was singular, one, before) to new and Minho simply replied that he won’t, because _try to look at it from this view; romantic, don’t you think?_

Seungmin rolled his eyes at that but when he took another sip of drink from his mug Hyunjin didn’t miss how his lips quirked up anyway.

Hyunjin never minds then. But he probably owes Minho one, because that space is so dark he can barely figure up what kind of expression drawn across his face.

Maybe he doesn’t want to see how Seungmin looks like right now.

Because when he hears, he sees, and the quiet sobs is enough for him to know what Seungmin looks like.

Seungmin isn’t an ugly crier per se (Hyunjin is). But when he cries, he cries rivers. Clear dark brown in his almond eyes gets murky and the white turns red. Tears that won’t stop no matter how fast he tries to pry them away or how hard he slaps angrily at his cheeks.

And when the frustration gets the better of him, he starts to hiccups, then the shaking shoulders and breathless inhales.

Always stays up the night, sobbing under the covers in the dark locked room.

Then the next morning, he will wake up as usual, makes coffees for both of them and sticks a post-it note on the refrigerator, scribbled with ‘I’m sorry. I’m okay now. See you at dinner!’ before he jogs to his classes. In the evening, Hyunjin will see him perched on the sofa watching whatever drama is on and Seungmin greets him cheerily as soon as he takes off his shoes.

But not even the wide smile and round glasses can hide the eye bags and the dark circles underneath his eyes.

Seeing Seungmin cries is simply devastating. Like seeing a small kid in pain, in hunger and helpless and you can’t help but to wish that the pain is yours to shoulder instead.

Right now, Hyunjin wants nothing but to pull him close, to embrace him in his warmth, to give him comfort at the end of his long hard day.

Seungmin shifts closer and carefully takes his hands that dangle limply by his sides and squeezes it so gently like he is the one at the verge of breaking down.

The cradle of his hands serves a bit like the hidden lines of numbers, or passwords, written in fluorescent dyes that can only be seen under black light in Escape Room – the difference is that Hyunjin has cracked this code multiple times by now he instantly gets the meaning lamented under the touch of his hands.

It intends to say – _I’ll be okay._

And, _I want to be with him._

“I’m sorry”, Seungmin utters under his breath and before tears come pouring out from the pool of his eyes, Hyunjin steps forward and takes him in his arms, praying harder than any other times to God, please don’t let him hurt anymore.

Hyunjin musters up a smile and whispers in a broken voice, “Don’t do what we shouldn’t do, Min”

All he gets for a reply is a shaky half-smile.

*

Hyunjin can’t sleep. He tries to, he truly does.

But the striped black-and-white summer blanket feels too hot on his skin, his bed feels itchy even though he has just changed them two days ago and he has already showered for the third time of the night at 3 in the morning.

His mind should stop wandering, but he can’t help it. He’s far too anxious, far too alert (thanks for the cup of coffee he is sipping – God, why does he even drink coffee at this time) – trying to reassure himself that no, Seungmin knows better than to do things they wouldn’t do.

They talked about this, when the spats between Minho and Seungmin has become a habit that is solved so easily in the presence of alcohol. Intoxicated in drunken honesty, heated kiss and carnal sex became the go-to solution, with no definite closure, no appropriate apologies and sit-down and we should talk talk.

Hyunjin knows he has no rights but he can’t help himself, can he?

So instead of lying down and press play on the ballad playlist he made in his Spotify account, Hyunjin sits cross-legged on the left side of the couch. Wrapped in his sweater that smells comfortingly like Seungmin. He switches on the TV too, because the lull of the living room is deafening and silence is not good, because it makes him thinks.

_Does Minho take good care of him?_

_Does he drink water before he sleeps?_

_Do they kiss?_

_Do they have sex?_

_Do they make up?_

The more he thinks, the worse it spirals out of his control.

Hyunjin should take a walk – it always helps him to not think. But he wants to be home, so if Seungmin comes back crying, he’d be there for him.

And stay he does – prisoned in growing guilt of thinking about his best friend and his longing to be there for him through day and night.

*

The sun has raised. Hyunjin’s 9 a.m. and the subsequent three 10 minutes intervals alarms after, has been ringing and dismissed. He is laying on his back of the couch now, tapping a hurried off-beat rhythm on his chest when he hears a clack of the lock.

Hyunjin gets up on his feet lithely – like he has an optimal eight hours sleep instead of none and runs to the door. There is soft jingle of keys from the other side (probably Seungmin placing his keys back inside his coat pocket) before the door cracks open just a fraction enough to let him in.

When he finally shuffles inside, Seungmin almost jerks back at the proximity of Hyunjin’s face.

Hyunjin wonders for a second if he looks too terrible, but he says a lame _‘hey’_ either way.

A giggle, and a returned _‘hello’_. Then, “Wait, are you not sleeping Hyunjin?”

Like a deer caught in headlights, Hyunjin’s reflex is to spit out flimsy excuse of, “I played games”

_how creative._

Seungmin raises his eyebrow but doesn’t push further. He takes off his shoes and sets it neatly on the wooden shoe shelf at the right side of the entryway.

“What?”

Hyunjin does not answers, because he has not been thinking past pulling him in a hug if he comes back tearing up but Seungmin doesn’t cry, so he somehow lost ways.

Seungmin lets out a soft stifle of laugh and when it ceases, he pulls Hyunjin in an embrace, nuzzling his head in the crook of Hyunjin’s neck with a hum.

He simply knocks Hyunjin out of his breath.

When Hyunjin comes around to return the hug, he freezes in his spot instead, because Seungmin doesn’t smell like him. Instead of berries and baby Johnson lotion, he reeks of musky expensive Burberry cologne.

Sleep-deprived Hyunjin decides he doesn’t like it.

Sleep-deprived and jealous Hyunjin decides to pull away from him and stares dumbfoundedly at the younger with what gleam the sunlight that seeps through the crack of the curtains allows. He eyes the khaki long coat Seungmin wore last night, to the black jersey with the university logo on the right side on the breast pocket that belongs to the dance team, and the ugly, angry dark purplish spots littered at his neck and behind his ears.

Fuck.

Sleep-deprived, jealous and hurt Hyunjin recoils a few steps back and runs to his room.

A coat hanging at the back of his chair, a leather wallet and a baseball cap lying on the table are what he grabs before he darts out of the apartment. Ignoring Seungmin’s frantic calling of his name, the confused down-slope of his eyebrows, his watery glassy eyes and his fruitless attempts to get Hyunjin to stop, please Hyunjin, listen to me.

He doesn’t want Seungmin to cry because of him, but his eyes grow hotter with each step he takes and Hyunjin realises that he is hurting too.

*

Hyunjin couldn’t point out when does he falls in love with Seungmin.

The two freshly enrolled college students’ first meeting was cliché-ly at the bus stop of the main campus, in front of the library. It was on one chilly evening, the sky up above was still blue but people were significantly lesser than from the earlier part of the day.

It was pretty much a peaceful Friday, except Hyunjin was bouncing his legs restlessly at the furthest right side of the bench because his bus hadn’t passed the bus stop once, his first (first!) formal swimming practice was in 20 minutes and none of his teammates has replied to his texts yet.

He should have just scurried to the pool with his friends instead of feigning interest in the engineering faculty seniors’ pitching of their Knitting Club on the flight of stairs of the library - fuck Hyunjin and his disastrous sense of direction. Now he didn’t even know how to get to the pool.

It was at his peak restless moment that someone scooted closer to his seat. Clad in a blue shirt which neatly tucked in his black pants, hair dyed in dark chestnut. Two thick books stacked on the space to his left.

The stranger appeared to hesitate for a moment before clearing his throat and casually remarked, “You have to walk you know. They don’t run the bus to HYU station after noon on Friday anymore”

To Hyunjin’s bewildered puzzled look, he simply added, “Get to the HYU station, by walking (he pressed on that), then take the sub to Sindab station, Exit 1 – no, wait, don’t look at me like that. I just happened to knew a senior from swimming club here”

“Your senior knew me?”

A raise of an eyebrow and he flatly replied, “I don’t know if my senior knew you or not – but he knew how the bus works”

Hyunjin meant to ask how did he know Hyunjin was going to the pool but before he did, a loud roaring of his phone followed by a frenzied swimming team’s captain “What are you doing Hwang Hyunjin! Coach is here!” made the 6-foot-inch tall Hyunjin quickly scrambled to his feet and yelled a loud ‘thanks’ to the guy in blue in return.

They met again two weeks later at the same spot, and this time Hyunjin came up to him first to learn that his name was Kim Seungmin, a mass com major (in journalism), and to Hyunjin’s query of how did he knew he was going to the pool, Seungmin beamed evilly and said, ‘you had freaking goggles in your hands, Hwang’

*

Hyunjin could not recall if there was an event of the oh, I’m falling in love moment for him.

It could simply be the familiarity.

While they both were very different kind of people, (Hyunjin was the popular dance major students and a swimming athlete while Seungmin was the studious scholarship student) they just kind of clicked. The talks they shared, the stupid bets they made, up to the uncanny sense of humour.

In one casual weekend gathering with few mutual friends, after finding out that they both were looking for roommates, they moved in together to a two-room apartment for sophomore year and within two months they were self-declared best friends.

For Hyunjin, it’s easy to fall in love with Seungmin especially when he saw him every day. The small deeds like re-filling his bowl with cereals or hogging him out from bed after a disastrous frat-party hung overs or grabbing Hyunjin’s favourite milk’s brand from the shelf and shoves it in the trolley in weekly groceries runs could be one of it.

It’s easy to love him, because when Seungmin smiles, he lights up the whole room. He is the one who holds Hyunjin’s clammy hands for hours without a single complaint when he cries and cheers with him when the lead characters from the drama finally have their first kiss.

Hyunjin can’t point out the time in his life when he falls in love with Seungmin but if you ask when he first admitted that he was in love – he may answer, when he first heard him singing.

It was 9 a.m., admittedly too early for Hyunjin to crawl out from his bed but there he was, waiting for Seungmin in front of the College of Social Sciences main building.

Seungmin’s 8 a.m. class was cancelled. By the time he got the memo – 7.45 a.m., he was already at the classroom. _‘It’s your fault for being early!’_ , was what in-hazed Hyunjin said, but Seungmin retorted with, _‘It’s freaking 7.45 a.m., Hyunjin!’_ (Hyunjin still didn’t get the point but decide to humour him for once)

Raps of hearty laughs which instantly followed with a familiar voice that whined a, _‘I have to go now. You said ten minutes, sunbae’_ that buzzed through the speakers hanging at the large pillar in the lobby of the building stopped Hyunjin in a mid-yawn.

_The Radio Club and their early morning broadcast._

Hyunjin remembered being told vaguely about it, but Seungmin would have told him if he did radio shows, right?

 _‘Oh, come on Seungmo. One last song’_ , the other guy – the one with high-tone laughs pleaded. And to that, the familiar one – Seungmin’s voice huffed, _‘I’m only doing this because I’m in good mood, okay?’_

That one was a blatant lie.

There were three reasons Hyunjin can attest to that.

 _First_ ; How can the Kim Seungmin be in good mood today?

He was staying up late last night for today’s presentation, woke up later than normal in return, and had to rush through his morning routines – also meant that he missed his dose of daily caffeine – a sacred obligation if you don’t want to deal with a cranky Kim Seungmin for the whole day – only for the class to be cancelled?

 _Second_ ; Who was the one who called him at the goddamn 8.15 a.m. (non-stop until he screamed under the covers pulling his own hair) with phenomenal persistence that can rival humanity’s last hope in whatever apocalypse movies of the whole time if not Kim Seungmin?

And when he picked up, it was only to tore Hyunjin’s ears off complaining about his shitty day and to wickedly whisper a, _‘which is why if you don’t come here now to get breakfast with me, for the sake of your best friend who wiped your disgusting vomit last week Hwang Hyunjin, you will be dead’_ before hanging up.

Needless to say, Hyunjin threw his blanket away and scrambled to his feet.

But the third point was that Kim Seungmin was lying through his teeth because he can’t even hide the rising octaves of his voice.

_You hear and you see, remember?_

Currently, Hyunjin can imagine him smirking while he lied to the whole main building. The kind of cheeky grin that while usually implied a humble, ‘Well, if you put it like that, there’s no way I can say no’ – but when it was Kim Seungmin, it simply meant, ‘Seems fun, I’ll do it but you have to be grateful. Buy me a coffee or something’

Then and after a long inhale that transmitted through the speaker above Hyunjin’s head, the guy began singing. It’s a song he hummed once in a while as he washed the dishes, hung the laundry or watered the cacti, but he was singing. Finally singing, started off with the soulful low baritone of his voice to the highs of an angel’s singing.

Hyunjin’s heart went badum badum badum, and badum badum badum again, and the next moment when he saw Seungmin’s face, slightly red and breathless from the running – he knew he had it bad.

*

  
For all the elation and euphoria that comes with loving Kim Seungmin, Hyunjin can’t escape the calamity of it being one-sided. The pain of wanting to be that person but can’t, the sorrow of wanting to stop his harsh sufferings and blanket him with tender love but isn’t allowed to.

As Hyunjin dashes down their apartment, clamouring his way through a swarm of strangers – mostly college students running for their 10 a.m. classes, or salarymen struggling to not be at the receiving end of another warning cards of the month – none of them matters. Not the crashing shoulders with sweaty people nor hearing nasty swearing words yelled at his face matter.

He keeps his head down to the ground along the edge of the curb, hands angrily rubbing off the tears until his phone in his hand starts ringing and vibrating. Seungmin’s caller id pops up one after another, dings of texts messages in between but these do nothing but spurring on his heartache.

Flashes of images, of Seungmin’s blotched face, of his thinning body, curled on the sofa, of the apartment that voids of his singing voices these past few months, to the flickering slow-mo of the smile on his face as he leaned towards Minho, the ugly hickeys littering his neck this morning and his desperate pleas for Hyunjin to listen.

Hyunjin takes a leap and runs, desperate to wash away all the woes, to tire himself out so that the panting of his breath for oxygen is winning over the searing of the heart-break, or at least until his legs got wobbly and betray him.

*

  
The sun is setting at the horizon, the pink slowly takes over the blue of the sky when Hyunjin rises from his hiding spot inside the red and yellow slides in the playground a few blocks away from theirs. The children who have been timidly poked wooden sticks at him – a pirate that is robbing them of their territory – scurry away when he straightens (even though he tries his best to regard them with an apologetic smile)

Hyunjin is famished and worn-out, he feels awful and sweaty and smelly and he’s quite sure he looks just as much.

He spends the time walking home pondering about mundane things that never grabs his interest. Like how the dusks are beyond his ken. The initially blue sky, which is swallowed whole by the pink and purple only to give rise to another reign of darkness. He wonders where everyone goes at this time of the day because the streets are barren of people, save for the loud gagging of crows but just a few minutes later, the night suddenly is bustling again.

Such things are what occupy his mind, until he’s finally at the front door of his place fiddling with the keys, contemplating between going in or chicken out and crashes at his friends’ place instead. For one moment, he thought of calling Felix and mixes up some excuses in his mind as he searches for his number, but he recalls the soft ‘are you okay?’ and the concerned look on Felix’s face when Seungmin bailed out on their long-awaited weekend hangout for a date with Minho last term.

He chooses not to.

So Hyunjin bucks up, sending prayers to God wishing that the small joints of the ball of his feet are strong enough to tiptoe and not letting a single squeak escapes on his way to reach his room.

He deems that it’s best to not talk to Seungmin yet. For the sake of his sane mind, most of all.

Hyunjin wraps and turns around the knob, gently slips into the entrance through the small crack of the door in a similar fashion as Seungmin did this morning.

The lights in the living room and the kitchen are off. Hyunjin gingerly peers at the hallway in front of the rooms but the bulb at the entryway suddenly sparks a dull yellow with a sharp ‘tap’ at his movement. Within 3 seconds, a distant rustle arises from the couch.

“Hyunjin?”

_Fuck, so much for being quiet._

He tries his damnedest not to glance at Seungmin who’s ambling towards him with cautious steps that creak faintly on the wooden boards underneath them.

The air hangs around them feels so tense and suffocating all of a sudden. As if everything around him burns in angry fire and Hyunjin feels it again in his bone, the urge to leave, to exhale the soot and smoke out of his lungs.

“Is it okay to talk?” Seungmin, the soft Seungmin asks with a voice hoarse and thick from the nap – or crying, pushing Hyunjin to yield and finally look at him proper.

Seungmin is standing a few feet away from him, hands nervously picking at the thumbs’ nail. He’s wearing the old white shirt that hangs lowly over his shoulders and his comfort plaid pants. The round glasses that gone askew from the bridge of his nose couldn’t even do its job at hiding the eye bags hanging under it.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Hyunjin averts his gaze and passes him to move to his room. When his door is pushed open, he pauses and sighs, “I’ll be fine”

Then the low slam of the wooden door echoes through the space, freezing every moment and every soul in between.

*

Sleeping as early as 8 p.m. in conclusion, is not a good idea.

Hyunjin is wide awake as he stares into the plain of the white ceiling of his bedroom. The digital clock on his table shows a 03:12. His eyes fresh, his 22 years-old-body, which has been killing him off these past few weeks with back pain, neck pain and all sorts of joints ache magically recuperate with seven hours of sleep and a hot long shower.

He has done almost everything to get back to sleep. Listening to sombre-nest music on video sites, or monotone podcasts on Spotify or watching the boring historical documentary but nothing works.

Hyunjin hasn’t had a proper meal (saves for the mugs of coffee he had this morning) and he’s starving but he gets cold feet to even get a step out from his room.

Especially not when he just sees a single, ‘I fix some dinner. Heat up when you’re going to eat’ text from Seungmin after switching on his phone.

Hyunjin rolls to his side and watches the neon greenish light from the glow in the dark stickers on the wall just above the bed. He traces the pattern they were slabbed on with his finger and snorts when once again, he realizes the semblance of the pattern to the red nose on Rudolf instead of the initially planned Pisces.

He used to be an avid believer of sleeping in a pitch-black dark room will grant you the best sleep, but Seungmin always ended up stubbing his toe with the edge of the furniture, dropping his blankets and pillow every time he comes over to sleep at Hyunjin’s room, so he decided to buy them online.

They don’t help much, but in the middle of one night when Seungmin crept into his room at ungodly 2 a.m. to land on the bed beside him after shoving Hyunjin off to the side, his off-handed comment about how the cheap stickers at least clued him on Hyunjin’s bed whereabouts, cancelled off his plan to get rid of them.

The room, saves for the low thrums of the fan spinning above, is thoroughly stilly. A heavy tug, tug, tug at his heart and the guilt that rumbles at the pit of his stomach thicken with each second passing.

And Felix’s latest text.

A single ‘call me back when you’re done sulking’ from Felix this morning. Seungmin must have reached him out, Felix and he are classmates after all. Then, rather than acting like a perfectly sensible citizen he is, Hyunjin sits up and grabs his phone on the table to hit the Australian’s number.

Unexpectedly, a low voice picks up the call on the third beep.

 _“What’s up, Hyunjin?”_ Gravelly, but clear as crystal.

Hyunjin clears his throat, “Not sleeping Yongbok?”

Felix doesn’t react but the loud clacking of keyboards remains in the background. The line is considerably muted for a long pause and Hyunjin takes the initiative to repeat, “Lix?”

A loud slam together with Felix’s cave voice yelling, _“Oh fuck you dimwit Banshee you should have covered me!”_ startles Hyunjin, making him jump slightly on his spot on the bed and gasps dramatically into the receiver.

 _“Oh, sorry_ ”, Felix apologises after a beat. Then, with a sweet loving sunshine Yongbok’s usual tone, he recites another, _“What’s up, Hyunjin?”_

It’s eerily scary how Felix’s voice changes in just a matter of a second. It’s like he’s speaking to an alter ego of him (probably ironically named Haengbok, at the age of freshly puberty-hit 15 years old, a hot-blooded school outcast online gamer)

Hyunjin scoffs the thought away and rolls his eyes at nobody, “You’re the one asking me to call you, Boks”

 _“Oh right,”_ Hums of acknowledgemet followed by faint sound of Felix footsteps over the other line. _“Seungmin texted me you’re already back”_ , Felix must be landing on his bed now if the metal creaks are of any tell-tale.

_“Are you done sulking?”_

Annoyance immediately sprouts out in his head, “What do you mean sulking?” Hyunjin retorts defensively as he glares at the nothingness in the dark in front of him. He is annoyed and that is evident enough in his tone. After all, Felix should be the one on his side, he knows the situation just as much as Hyunjin does! (and he knows Hyunjin likes Seungmin even before he does himself!)

 _“Look, I don’t blame you”_ Felix sighs in the phone, keeping his tone as even as possible, _“I get it. Just…don’t be so hard on him”_

Hyunjin takes the moment to unwind, to relax and breathes calmly. His eyes blaze through the narrow gap between the door and the floor to see a dim of light seeping in.

 _“He’s looking for you like crazy today, Hyunjin”_ Felix blurts out, _“He went looking everywhere. Our faculty, the dance studios, the pool!”_

 _“He even missed his classes”_ There’s a tentative pause on Felix’s part. When he talks again, it’s stern with finality, _“Just make-up, okay. Talk nicely you both”_ then he hangs up.

The guilt that has been gushing through his mind gets to full-blown tropical monsoon all at once. Hyunjin slumps full-bodied on the mattress, rolling onto his stomach and bangs his head on the bed in silent screams.

With the remaining strength he has left, he gets up to his feet and gingerly pries open the door. The rest of the apartment is dark saves for the faint one bulb lighting the balcony beside the living room. Hyunjin shifts closer to Seungmin’s door, draws a few deep breaths in, doing his utmost to compose himself to get a grip, Hyunjin.

Gently, with all fibres in his muscle, unthinking whether the younger is sleeping or not, he knocks on the door and waits. On the eighth count, just when the thought of retreating back to his room crosses his mind, Seungmin’s door flies open.

Wide, red-eyed Seungmin, with traces of dried tears on his cheeks and a blotched face stands before him. His black bangs hang over his forehead, hiding the downslope of his eyebrows and the little crease between it.

Suddenly, there’s a lump in his throat. Hyunjin’s breath catches a gasp, stuttering as he starts talking, “I... I… thanks for the food”, he says instead.

“Have you eaten?”

“Not yet” Hyunjin scratches at the back of his neck, “I mean... I read your text”

“Oh” is the response he gets from Seungmin. The initial shock that colours his face is replaced with a fond soft smile as he spares a few moments staring into Hyunjin’s eyes before he abruptly shifts his gaze towards the floor.

Hyunjin doesn’t know what to do. Everything, Seungmin’s little smile, his tearing gaze and the silence that is inching in the space between them overwhelm him in a torturous pace. Hyunjin takes a step back, maybe he should get back to his room and gives themselves a break but cold hand wraps around his wrist, halting him in the motion.

“Can you come in?”

*

They are sitting side by side on the edge of the bed with their backs on the wall. Even with the lights off, Hyunjin couldn't help noticing how close they are, with their shoulders touching and warmth radiating from his right.

“I'm sorry” Seungmin begins, pulling his stretched-out legs closer to his chest and wraps his arms around it.

It is so earnest, said so softly and Hyunjin mirrors to pull his knees and rests his chin on it.

“Do you guys make up?”

“… Yeah,” A faint sound of a car passing the road outside and then he adds, “Minho hyung… he apologised...”

Breathing feels heavier now, like his windpipe constricts and more and more mucus secretes out with each of his attempt to inhale. More than anything else, Hyunjin feels like the biggest prick on the Earth.

He closes his eyes and turns to face him. “It’s good then”, he says, trying his best to send him a sincere smile but the corners of his lip falter from the up-quirks, and he moves closer to wrap Seungmin’s body carefully in his arms instead.

A quiet gush of wind sweeps through the small gap of the windowsill, seeping chills into his bone before Seungmin frees his hands in between their bodies and engulfs Hyunjin in it, pulling them a tad bit closer. They stay like that for so long it seems like the traffic has increased slightly than before.

“Hyunjin-ah" Seungmin quivering voice is barely audible to Hyunjin’s ears when he asks, "How is it possible to feel so safe and so scared in someone’s arms?”

Hyunjin knows he isn’t in the equation if the sudden wetness that clings on his shirt is any indication, but he pulls Seungmin closer either way.

“It’s okay. I’m here”

~

Minho, to Seungmin, was electric.

From the first he sets his eyes on him to the last feeling of Minho’s hands in his.

Minho was a third-year when he started middle school. That kind of popular, good-at-everything guy. The rowdy one who had friends in every class and pleasantly loved by the teachers all the same. The one whose locker burst with hand-made chocolates and perfumed love letters on Valentine’s Day. The one who had the girls giggling and cheering during sports day.

Seungmin didn't get the rage, but it’s not like he really cared.

Until that year September, when he played his first baseball game for the middle school season.

Seungmin was summoned in as a relief pitcher, replacing their starter for the last inning of the game. Their team was already ahead in the count but Seungmin wasn’t him if not going for the best. He threw his best fastballs, outing the batters of the other team or rendered them hitting fouls. When he surprised the last hitter with a changeup ball, the spectators on the right side of the stadium soared with prideful cheers as their team grasped the final outs.

A group of boys came running to body-slam his third-year teammates when they were walking down the exit of the stadium. And when one of them, the Lee Minho whose face Seungmin immediately recognized from his two cute bunny teeth, jogged towards him and beamed a “Good job Kim!” with a friendly smack on his back, Seungmin awed in surprise.

Maybe because Seungmin secretly had always wanted a brother, or Minho's eyes were glinting with amazement like his grandfather's when he first pitched a ball, he stopped in his trance, mind dazed as he watched the herd of boys disappeared from the stadium exit.

Like an electric, he had the sudden impulse in his veins to send Minho chocolates on Valentine’s too.

~

  
Seungmin never did, because the following Valentine, Minho was already in high school. With the forgotten impulse at the back of his mind, he stood in front of his locker that year Valentine's, looking at a single baseball glove and haphazardly stacked manga with no sweet chocolates in sight.

Minho never crossed his mind after that, nor the Valentine after, until the day Seungmin was forced to rest as early as the fifth inning of his last baseball game semi-final.

He didn’t know what happened, except the stings that he felt a few practices back returned to finally rip his right shoulder. The ecstatic adrenaline that used to make up for the pain two games prior must had died out, because standing on the base, in the middle of the green patch of the field, Seungmin wailed in pain that even the ball rolled away from his clutch.

He didn't cry. Not when his school lost their chance to grab the gold medal and not even that night when the doctor told him that it might be best for him to quit the sport altogether.

He didn’t spill a tear when he tallied the beads of rain that fell down the glass windowpane of his hospital room as the number of people he must have disappointed with his lost-talent.

All he felt was numbness and if Minho flickered in his memory, it was just because he was merely one of them.

~

They ended up in the same high school, much to his chagrin.

Seungmin didn’t realize that until the day he sat on the bench by the field to eat his egg sandwiches. Drenched in sweat as he motioned at his other classmates to continue playing the soccer game against the boys from the class next door, a certain Lee Minho came sidling up to his right.

"Oi” was the first thing Lee Minho said, and Seungmin, in wide-eyed and open-mouthed shock didn’t manage to stutter a word.

“Do you not recognize me anymore Kim? We’re from the same middle school!”

‘I know who you are. I know we are from the same school’, was what he should say but, “Kim Seungmin. My name is Kim Seungmin”, came out instead.

Minho shook his head and smiled with his eyes. “I know your name, Kim Seungmin”

Maybe the wind favoured Lee Minho, because it let his messy black bangs fall oh-so-softly on his forehead, or the sun had the soft spot for him as it forged his figure to look straight out like a statue, but suddenly Seungmin felt currents in his whole limbs.

It felt like that one time when lightning bolted down to this house compound and buzzed at his fingertips with tiny blue sparks when he moved the cursor of his charging laptop.

A shock, and a giddy feeling as an aftermath. Like he’d survived a near-death experience and had to let the world know that he lived through it.

It didn’t make sense how it made he felt just because Lee Minho who hardly crossed his mind knew his name, but he put the blame on the wind and the sun anyways.

~

  
After the injury that cost him the chance to be a pro, Seungmin avoided everything that was baseball.

He didn't spare a glance to the baseball field where the school team were practising. He skipped the channel whenever the Baseball Today segment of 8 p.m.'s news came up. He sloshed the glove, the bat, the hat, the uniforms and signed baseball ball from Kim Jae Hyuk inside a brown box, taped and tucked the furthest away inside the store.

Baseball simply stopped becoming a part of his life.

Instead of obsessing over Ryu Hyun Jin joining the US Major League and repeating the clips of his monstrous pitches, Seungmin put on his earphones and flipped through his textbooks. He played football during lunch, ate tokbokki with his friends after school and got ice cream with Minho on days he didn’t have taekwondo practices in the evening.

It was much like the high school life he imagined, minus baseball and the pain.

The routines repeated on and on until one Friday, when Minho hurriedly stopped by his class to pass a baseball game ticket in his hand. Before Seungmin had the chance to say anything, he scurried away to his class.

When he went home, Seungmin stashed the ticket right into the dustbin in his room instead.

The day of the game came two days later, together with texts from Minho at 9 a.m.

_Where are you?_   
_The game is starting._   
_Tell me where you are, I’ll get you._

Seungmin turned off his phone and tugged the blanket all over his head until noon.

It wasn't until the evening just before dusk that his mother knocked at his door. "Your friend came to see you. The poor boy was rained down"

Seungmin sat still on his chair, twirling his pen in his hand as he watched the letters on his workbook danced. When his mother’s retreating footsteps echoed further and further away from him, he peeked through the window of his room.

Outside, puddles had already formed on the ground, water had filled up to the brim of his mother's plant pots and the damp air was starting to reek of wet grass and humid wood.

He took a deep breath to hold his ground and to chase away the storms that were swarming in his head and heart. After what felt like an eternity, he finally stands up and went down.

Minho, dressed in a casual white t-shirt that stuck to his body and a pair of black jeans was drying off his hair with a towel at their house entryway.

His head whipped up when Seungmin’s footsteps approached and calmly, he said, “I was waiting for you the whole day”

“Never say I was coming”

“You could have at least reply to my texts,” Minho sighed, shoulders slumped down as he searched into Seungmin's eyes.

Minho's stare burnt through his head, unnerving him. But instead of cowering under his gaze, Seungmin signalled for Minho to follow him up to his room.

He could spare him a dry shirt, at the very least.

In his sparse room saved for the stacking bookshelves and comic books, Minho stood still on the doormat in front of his toilet as Seungmin searched the drawer for clothes that would fit him. At last, he handed off a relatively new black t-shirt and grey sweatpants.

“Get changed. You’re gonna get cold” He advised and ambled towards his bed at the right side of the room.

Minho didn’t move to do so but the silence that stretched through the whole space was broken down by the wet squeaks of his footsteps across the floor.

“Why?” He asked, a few steps shy from Seungmin’s bed.

Seungmin shut his eyes and landed his back on the bed. “What do you mean why? I don’t want you to get sick”

“Why don’t you come?”

There were so much Seungmin can take. But picking on his sore spots and brought it up was low, even for Lee Minho. The furious throbs that had been plaguing him since the day Minho shoved that ticket in his hand bubbled up and he snapped.

“I don’t play baseball anymore” He glared at Minho who loomed above him, “And think better before you asked why, Lee Minho, because you know exactly fucking why”

Minho trudged closer, and with the same composure from before, he spoke, “That's why you hated it so much now?”

Seungmin rose to his feet and snarled through gritted teeth “What?”

To his account, Minho at least dared a flash of guilt in his expression but he didn't stop. “You don't have to hate it, Seungmin”

Seungmin gawked at him unbelievably, at the Lee Minho who waited for him by the school gate just to buy him ice-cream. At the Lee Minho who existed to knock the air out from his lungs only by being the magnificent person he was. At Lee Minho, who was good at everything with an indispensable count of talents. At Lee Minho, who didn’t have to live each day looking into the sad eyes of his parents.

Seungmin sniggered, breaking down in hysterical high tone laughs that resonated throughout the whole room until the syllable of the 'ha' chocked on his throat, too painful to escape. He whirled back, staggering in harsh breaths and begged, “Just go, Minho. I don't want to talk about this”

“You can talk to me, Seungmin", he uttered forlornly, “I'm here”

"Talk about what?" Seungmin barked. The barricades that he had put up for so long between his despair and the people around him felt like it was failing him, like it was crumbling down bits by bits.

“Talk about how pathetic I am, so you and your friends have something to laugh at my face?”

“It's not like that!” Minho countered in a rush, “I just don't want you to hate something you love so much, Seungmin. It's hurting you”

Seungmin clenched his teeth and surged forward to grab Minho by his collar, but in seconds, his clutch went weak, like the muscles in his arm had gone limp. His vision blurred and there were hot damps on his cheeks. But only when his shoulders stuttered in hiccups did he realised he was crying.

Then, as when the icy cliffs of the Antarctic fell into the ocean, the thrashing of the tides, strong and powerful, swept into his heart with the memories of joy and pain. Of the light in his deceased grandfather's eyes when he watched his first play in school. In the smiling faces of his parents when he opened his birthday present of a new baseball glove. To that time when he returned to the locker room only to empty out his baseball gears, to the quiet cries of his mother, alone in the dark kitchen in the middle of the night, to the pain that ghosted over his shoulder up to this day.

Seungmin fell to his knees and he cried and cried, and then there was warmth all over, as Minho's arms wrapped him in gentle soft hums and soothing coaxes.

Minho felt like static electric that clung to his skin this time. The type that sent shivers down his neck and spine as he miserably tried to pry him off, to recoil away from his touch. But the arms around him grew tighter and Seungmin gave up, slumped into the dampness of Minho's shirt, crying for the first time in many months.

~

Seungmin’s first kiss was pretty much an iffy subject, though in all honesty, he was glad that it was Lee Minho.

That year and beyond, they remained friends and stayed in contact even when Minho had enrolled in a university. He came to his graduation ceremony, was sitting down with him when Seungmin's exam results were out, had hollered out in merry joy and lifted him up to the sky when he was accepted to the same university as he did.

And through those years, Minho may have not known but Seungmin had grown to like him a little more than a brother and a much more than a friend. Maybe he didn't notice how his eyes sparkled in a certain way whenever he spotted Minho leaned over his motorbike out of his cram school building. Maybe he thought that the flushes up in his cheeks when he ran over towards him was simply because of the running itself.

Seungmin was unquestionably, definitely, very much fine with that. It was alright, as long as Minho would let him stay by his side, which was why Seungmin had never talked about the kiss.

It was on the day Seungmin took his CSAT. By dusk, when the streetlights had started to light up his part of city, he rode a train from home and knocked on Minho's rented apartment with tubs of ice cream, chips and gummy bears in his hands.

Perhaps he should have called beforehand, because Minho when opened the door, was pink going red. Over his shoulders, he noticed cans of beers and a playing video in his laptop on the table, which Minho shut down as immediately as both of them went in.

Seungmin rocked uncomfortably on his feet in the middle of the living room as Minho scrambled to clear the table clean. When Minho jogged to the kitchen, he timidly asked, “You know you can just drink in front of me, right? I'm not a kid”

He didn't respond, so Seungmin continued, “Should I just go now? I'll come again next time, I promised I'll call first”

Minho's deft fingers that were tying the plastic bag stopped in the motion, “No, no,” he hurried over to where Seungmin was standing, “You could stay. I’m just… sorry, this was a mess”

Seungmin eyed Minho for a few seconds, at his red face and the panic in his expression before he burst out hearty laughter, “What are you? A clean drunk?”

“No, I'm not” Minho denied in offences, “I'm not drunk!”

“Hyung” Seungmin called between giggles, “You're red. And you never clean anyways!"

"Hey!"

The night passed like all the other nights whenever he stayed over Minho's place. Both of them sitting on the arrays of blankets on the floor, their backs leaned against the sofa with Spirited Away playing on the television. This time around though, Minho's head had lolled to his side for countless time not even halfway into the movie.

But Minho was stubborn in a way that no man can make him listened to Seungmin’s just go and sleep, I'll be fine watching this alone, till at last, his head plopped, snug and relaxed on Seungmin’s shoulder.

Then there was that again. The erratic beating of his heart that threatened to leap out from his cage whenever their bodies pressed too close. The warm, tingling sensation that resurfaced on his palms and soles and the back of his neck whenever Minho nuzzled close.

Seungmin was probably hypnotized with an extreme case of selective fondness, but Minho smelled like fresh mint and chocolate instead of sickeningly sweet buttery beers like this. And now, free from the panics of getting caught, he took his time to study the perfectly sloped nose, the long fluttering eyelashes and the silky fair skin and once again, he marvelled at how beautiful Minho was.

The peaceful moment lasted exactly three minutes, because Minho's phone on the table suddenly blasted a loud roaring of My Generation, sending Seungmin baulked in his spot and Minho hurled to the side, head first, with a loud oomph.

Either dead drunk, or had plunged off his bed multiple times before, Minho just grunted incoherent words under his breath and promptly pulled the blanket all over his body.

Seungmin, caught so much in surprise, ended up rolling on the floor in a hushed laughing fit. It wasn't until all the giggles had left his lungs that he finally veered Minho to lay on his back and lifted his head to rest a pillow underneath.

But Seungmin must have pulled a strand of his hair or something, because Minho's eyes shortly flew open and a few seconds later, he was blinking lazily at him in a hazed stare. Grinning with a dopey smile as his hands slowly moved to cup the whole span of Seungmin’s waist.

They stilled like that for minutes that passed excruciatingly slow in Seungmin's too-sober mind, but he didn't dare to move. Didn't dare to slap away Minho's right hand that crept up to caress over the high of his left cheeks so softly, so gently, and when he talked again, it was with a voice so thick with sleep as he whispered, “You are so pretty, Seungminnie…"

What happened next felt like it would belong to the blurry pixels of old movies. The closing of the inches between their faces, of Minho's minty breath that hovered over his mouth, the flutters of his eyelashes under the light from the telly and the press of his lips, dry and soft all the same, on Seungmin's, felt like a zap of tinkering shocks that short-circuited his mind and body.

Through the short seconds they kissed, Seungmin managed to freeze in his spot like a sheltered virgin, and Minho when pulled away, fell into a slumber so deep he wouldn't even wake up to an earthquake.

Seungmin didn't, couldn't bring this up no matter how many times Minho asked what was wrong the next day. He didn't know what worse, his rather amateurish pitiful kissing skills, or Minho's lackadaisical response to the whole thing.

(Asshole didn't recall a thing. (A thing!))

~

They started dating on the last day of Seungmin's mid-term exam, second semester of freshman year.

It was one weird day, to say the least.

They had dinner in a place that was neither the usual kimchi jiggae place run by an old married couple a station away from HYU, nor the fried chicken franchise who had a pretty 30-ish lady owner with hip interior and glasses shaped like chemistry beakers.

That day, they dined at a fancy chandelier lighted place, with windows and walls made up from glasses that spanned up to the ceiling, Vivaldi Four Seasons played in the background and stacks of forks of three sizes, one heavy spoon and a knife tucked crisp in a blue shaft beside their plates.

Although Seungmin did crave for some spicy tongue-tingling stew after taxing weeks of exams, it was overall a pleasant place.

They would leave the restaurant smelling like expensive ancient wines and may even belt out bonjour, or merci like a native, instead of broke college students who reek off cheap soju and charred pig meat.

So, all in all, it was fine.

Or it could have been, if Minho was acting at least half of his normal instead of fidgeting on his seat, clasped and unclasped his hands like he was spending his whole savings on this one meal and was wondering if it was the right decision.

The boring talks of how was your exam and yeah I’m glad it’s over couldn’t even rival the awkward silence that followed. By the time they got to the dessert, Seungmin started sending glares over Minho's way, tapped lightly on his hands and cleared his throat obnoxiously loud as pleas to let’s just get out from here.

But Minho persistently acted like he didn't get the signals, averted Seungmin’s piercing gazes whenever their eyes met, and deliberately swirled the red wine in his glass over and over again.

Needless to say, it sucked the spirit out of Seungmin until at last, he decided that he could take it no more.

Under the table, he kicked Minho’s shin and relished in triumph at the moment he yelped and the red liquid spilt on Minho’s white shirt and black slacks. A waitress who was attending to two tables away from them rushed to offer her apologies.

When she went back to fetch more tissues from the counter, Minho lifted his face to meet Seungmin who had an innocent smile sitting pretty on his face, with questioning eyebrows and a mimed ‘what?’

Seungmin was about to come up with a smart snide when Minho suddenly broke out in a stifle of laughs.

The soft, warm and fuzzy giggles that shut Seungmin mouth tight, and with a smile, he asked, “Should we get out of here?”

They did belt out merci when they exited the fancy restaurant, though it undeniably sounded very much Korean. They smelled like expensive wine too, thanks for Minho.

The walk back to Seungmin’s dorm was far more bearable than the stuffed atmosphere from before (Except for that barest brushing of their shoulders when Minho pushed Seungmin closer to the inside of the curb, away from the traffic which Seungmin tried so damnedest hard to ignore by laughing one note higher)

“Couldn’t you just say that you want to go home instead of kicking me like that, like a normal person?” Minho huffed, once their giggles from the restaurant had considerably died down.

Seungmin rolled his eyes, “That’s rich coming from someone who avoided me every time I opened my mouth” He held tighter onto the strap of his backpack, “I’m glad the wine only spilt on you. I would have felt bad if she had to clean all the mess”

“Stay over and clean it then. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind extra hands” replied Minho breezily into a sweet smirk. “Anyway, this shirt is new. Pay for it, Kim Seungmin”

Seungmin snorted, “That’s your fault too, you know. You never said we are going to that kind of place” He looked down to his outfit and pinched the sleeve of knitted light blue sweater he was wearing and flaunted it in front of Minho’s face. “I’m severely underdressed, it’s borderline humiliating”

"What's wrong with what you're wearing? You look cute”

_Shriek._

Seungmin’s white converse screeched loud to a sudden halt on the red and grey cobblestones on the kerb, at the same time Minho’s head whipped to his side in stunned goggled-eyes.

They blinked wordlessly at each other, and Seungmin mentally counted each second passing to a moment when Minho would open his mouth and spit a, ‘Just kidding, you dumb kid. You’re ugly’ like he did some times.

But no. Minho just stood there, mirroring his flustered blinking until he cleared his throat and led the way back to his dorm without a sound.

If, just if, there really was red of Minho’s ears like Seungmin thought he saw, he pushed it to the back of his head, blaming the alcohol over and over again.

“I’ll just…get in then” Seungmin settled at long last of them both wasting too much time watching each other’s shoes like they were exotic animals in the zoo, instead of speaking to each other.

Minho gazed up, “Yeah…yeah” He leaned back, trying to see Seungmin better under the yellowish lights from the lamp posts in front of the dorm building.

With a small smile, he nodded, “Yeah... You should get in. It’s getting cold”

A rush of disappointment jabbed all over Seungmin in violent spree as soon as that words left his mouth. There’s so much thing in his mind, so many questions that racked up to the front of his head on their silent way back to his hostel.

Questions like, why did you bring me to a place like that? What’s in your mind that you don’t say a word when we ate just now? Why did you call me cute? Why didn’t you deny calling me cute?

But Minho nodded at him once again, and Seungmin tucked that matter away with his wonted chant of don’t be hopeful, don’t be greedy, Kim Seungmin, he only likes you as a friend and wheeled round towards the flight of stairs, feeling the backpack slung over his shoulders even heavier than before.

 _… Five, six, seven…_ he counted each step he took at snail’s pace, and just when he was about to reach a twelve, a quick, high-pitched squeak that glided on the concrete floor from the bottom of the stairs echoed, deterring him in the motion together with a hurried call of his name.

_Minho’s call of his name._

Seungmin stood frozen, blinking nervously to strip away the nerves that yet again twisted and rumbled in knots in his stomach, before he bucked up and ran down the stairs.

Minho was looking up at him with a hand held too tight on the metal newel, it's turning white.

“Yeah?” Seungmin panted.

Encased again with the tics of clasping and unclasping his hands, Minho tensed in a painful struggle of opening and closing his mouth to pipe out words that seemed to have died on his tongue. At one point, he huffed out loud and whirled his body to scream at the world outside.

Then, returning with a determined red on his face, he braved out in one breathe, “I like you, Kim Seungmin. Would you like to date me?”

_Bells._

Seungmin heard bells.

The tinkering, merry jingling of metals he usually heard on weddings. The sounds got louder in his ears, boomed with each passing to drown out all the other noises. His knees felt weak out of the blue, failing him so as to let him fell flat on the steps with a thump like a ragged doll.

Minho was saying something, and there’s a frown in between his eyebrows but he could hear nothing of it.

There were only bells, and then his eyes were hot and so did his cheeks.

Seungmin was crying. Crying, like the dramatic Hyunjin, a friend from Dance Department that he sometimes hung out with since the first semester.

Humiliated by his own theatrics that came out of nowhere, Seungmin hastily pulled his knees closer to his chest, hiding his face away from Minho as he tried to splat the tears away.

Minho’s warm hands were on his face next, wiping away the tears away with the pad of his fingers and pled, “You don’t have to feel sorry if you don’t feel the same, Seungmin. It’s okay…”

“No!” Seungmin yelped, snatching the wrists of Minho into his hand.

In a brand-new spirit, as if he didn’t just fell down and wept, he declared fiercely, “I like you too, you idiot”

A lot actually, but, “I like you. And I want to be your boyfriend too but I’m so disgustingly overwhelmed that I sobbed like an idiot but yeah, I like you” _I like you so much, Lee Minho._

“Yeah?” Minho beamed with his eyes and lips and Seungmin’s heart clenched again with so many swells of joy.

“Yeah…” 

Minho let out a soft silly laugh that tickled at Seungmin’s heart, carving a smile out on his face. With a sharp exhale, he gradually bent down to hover just above Seungmin’s crouched form on the steps.

Amidst quivering unfocused eyes and shaky breathless inhales, he asked, “Can I kiss you?”

 _Oh_ , and “…Yes, please”

Then Minho’s lips were on his.

People around Seungmin had said, that kisses weren’t at all the fireworks by the sea, or the electric that jolts up the body.

But with Minho’s plump lips against him, soft and sweet as he guided Seungmin’s to move in tandem with his, the shivering breaths in between the nudges of Minho’s tongue on his lips, the spritzy taste of the wine and the feathery skims of Minho’s fingers on his cheeks, on his jaws, as he tilted his face up to slot their lips together was everything and more than he imagined.

Seungmin discovered that kissing was, after all, still those colourful fireworks and buzzing electrics but better.

A whole lot better.

**Minho hyung**

  
📎 1090561_041019.jpg  
;D

  
Ramyeon?!  
Seriously Kim Seungmin?!  
After I fed you gourmet?!?!  
Also,  
📎 20000434_041019.jpg  
;D

Hahahahahaha lol say you!  
Shouldn’t you be sleeping?  
Stop eating, youre gonna get fat you pig

Dont you need sleep?  
You know, since you cried so bad just now…

Stoppp youre annoying

Kim Seungmin professed his love for me in snorts and tears~  
I wish I take pics  
Should I ask the guard for CCTV?

Ugh why I’m dating you again?

Because you like me so much 😊

  
Bye

What?  
Not even a goodnight?  
To your boyfriend?  
Hello?  
Are you sleeping?  
Hello??????????!!!

Seungmin couldn’t sleep that night because he was busy.

(Changing Minho’s contact number – he settled with a Minho hyung <3 at last, after multiple shameless cheesy attempts – counted, _excuse you!_ )

~

Minho’s every little touch tingled on his skin is a gospel that Seungmin had long suspected but only recently approved.

Particularly on that day.

They were having another weekly movie marathon, snuggling under the blanket on Minho’s couch, seeking each other’s warmth in the cold of early winter with innocent presses of lips against lips in between.

The credits from the movie was rolling on the screen when Seungmin’s phone on the table chimed with texts.

**Hyunjinnie**

  
You back yet?  
The train stop running at 11 today cos snow

“Oh shit”

Minho squinted from his spot on Seungmin’s chest, “What’s up?”

“I gotta go now” Seungmin rose sluggishly to lean the entire of his weight on his elbow, careful not to drop Minho in the way, “The train stop running at 11 tonight”

“Snow?”

Seungmin nodded.

Minho groused barely-audible complaints under his breath. “I hardly see you these days…” he started, making zero effort to detach himself off Seungmin’s body, “I miss you”

Seungmin hummed softly, carding Minho’s chestnut locks in between his fingers while drawing soothing circular rubs on his back with his other hand.

The past two weeks were hands down hectic. The second semester of the year was about to end and so did the deadlines for every subjects’ assignments and group projects. In addition to that, students had to spare aside some time to study for the exam on things they’d learnt 5 months ago that was vaguely even there in their heads.

Seungmin was of no exception. He had been huddling at the same spot in the library, studying on the desk behind the last row of bookshelves on the third floor for weeks now. His dates with Minho since the last two weeks forewent, and he felt bad for him. Only god knows how much he missed his boyfriend, to see his face, to kiss his lips and to drown himself under his tight hug.

Just two more weeks.

“I know. I miss you too…” A kiss to the crown of Minho’s head. “But I really have to go now, hyung. Or would you rather see me freezing by the street, hmm?”

Minho glanced up to meet Seungmin’s eyes and even as he started another tirade of protests, he did at least free his limbs off him and watched as Seungmin got up to his feet.

“Don’t sulk” Seungmin cooed and pecked him on the lips, “We’ll see each other again soon, okay?”

He waddled to pick up his belongings in Minho’s room. As his fingers nimbly stuffed the books back inside his bag, Seungmin heard shuffles across the floor alongside Minho’s quiet hums. Before anything else, a familiar weight settled on his back and strong arms wrapped around his middle again. Seungmin relaxed immediately into the embrace, allowing himself to melt into the comfort of Minho’s body for some more moments.

“Do you really have to go?” Minho nuzzled into the crook of his neck.

“Yeah…” he hummed.

A wet kiss on his nape, “Do you have class tomorrow?”

“No…” Seungmin soughed, “I’m working out assignments”

Another kiss with a swish of the tongue and a scrape of teeth at the helix of his right ear, “Stay over then”

Minho’s low voice brushed too close to his ear, tensing his whole body. Seungmin shivered when cold hands slipped in from the hem of his sweater. His breathing picking up to the sensation of Minho’s fleeting touches that glazed over the skin of his tummy, and when he wandered into the dips of his spine and the dimples of his hips, Seungmin let out a soft gasp.

“Hyung…” Seungmin breathed, “I promised Hyunjin to help him with his assignment tomorrow morning”

Minho’s roaming fingers on his skin abruptly stopped, pulling a soft whine out from Seungmin’s lips before he was turned around and was kissed square on the lips, deep and bruising and wanting.

Minho’s kisses were intense and knowing, as he bit down Seungmin’s lips, taking each of them in smooth alternates. Swipes of tongue lapping at the sweet spot at the highest roof of his mouth made Seungmin’s fingers curled into the creases of Minho’s shirt as he moaned.

Minho’s approving hums sent electrics and fireworks all over his body. He could feel himself melt as the elder tasted him, devouring each sweet moans and beautiful gasps that he offered. Their teeth clicking and spit drooling, but Minho’s strong hand remained on his jaw, while the other kneaded the soft flesh of his cheeks as he angled his face down to slot their lips better.

Seungmin panted breathlessly, knees weakened when he pulled away to meet a face flushed red, lips red swollen and hooded dark eyes.

“Don’t go back to your room tonight,” he whispered. “Stay, please”

Seungmin couldn’t say no this time, because Minho was luring him in, trapping him in a force field that he had no power against. Like Minho was an atom that spanned and orbited around him, creating an arena where the currents and electrics flowed into his every little touch on his skin.

Seungmin couldn’t deny the thrill that came with that dizzying buzz in his head, heart and veins, and all he wanted at that moment was to feel Minho’s skin on his own and to take everything that he would give.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changbin makes an appearance! Also, he's aged up 4 years older than Seungmin.

“Did you RSVP yet?”

Changbin’s way-too-near husky voice startles Seungmin, making him jumps on his seat so as to send the chair glides away from his working station.

Equipped with a gift to pointedly ignore things around him, Changbin bends down and takes the liberty to scan the black and gold wedding invitation in his hands from page to page, “Hmm… It’s this weekend Kim. I think you should RSVP as soon as possible"

Seungmin crosses both of his arms in front of him, "What I think, is that we as human beings, have something called privacy”

“We do have such thing here in this office?” Changbin gasps in a mock-horror that lasts for a mere 2 seconds before he pulls the closest chair (Seungkwan's, next to Seungmin) and sits on it.

With a growing grin on his lips, he scoots closer to whisper conspiringly (with extra breaths than actual voice) at Seungmin's ear, “Do you need a fake date?”

Seungmin flicks a finger on Changbin's forehead, “What are you? Fanfiction writer?”

“Everyone writes fanfic, Kim. It’s either you post it or not” Changbin huffs as he rubs on the reddening sore spot on his forehead, and to Seungmin’s unamused glare, he giggles and takes a sip of ice americano (Seungkwan’s) on Seungkwan’s table.

“Anyway” He clears his throat and points to the card in his hand, “You’d been staring at this thing for like an eternity now”

“You, and your indefinite love for hyperbole”

“It's a matter of speech, Kim Seungmin _editor_ ," Changbin retorts, "Anyways, I've been calling you for thousandth times and you weren’t listening”

_Another matter of speech_ , Seungmin groans, covering the whole of his face with his hands. "How long has it been?"

“At least one hour by now," He fixes a serious look on his face this time, "Now tell me what is the matter?”

Here is the thing. Seo Changbin is the biggest prankster Seungmin has ever met in his 27 years old life on Earth – no compromise, but he’s also his biggest moral support in this workplace. The supervisor who had taught him since day one of work (on how to finalize the HR complicated report up to their chief division's sugar to cream ratio in his coffee) He was the one who bought him beef and poured him soju by the end of the week when he had been targeted by the Department Vice-Director Mr Jeong to run petty errands like an intern.

Changbin is a good listener, a wise sunbae who always know how to deal with unprecedented situations.

  
(Seungmin once awed at his skills, calling him the coolest sunbae he'd ever had (drunk) and Changbin had outwardly bragged to the whole diner that he is a troubleshooter with glinting eyes and a set of uncoordinated wriggling eyebrows)

Seungmin leans back against the head-rest of the chair and turns to him, “I'd RSVP actually. Just… freaking out, I guess" He murmurs, "There may be some people I’m not sure I wanted to see”

A raise of an eyebrow, “An ex?”

Seungmin only lets out a low grumble as a response.

Instead of empathizing with his misfortune, Changbin’s slanted eyes grow comically wider as he claps his hands. “It’s the fake date thing!”

Seungmin closes his eyes and flattens the lines between his eyebrows with his two indexes.

He shouldn’t have told him anything. He should have just chuck away the card in the drawer and keep his mouth shut no matter how relentless Changbin gets. Look at him now, there's no way he wouldn’t end up curling on his bed to tend a terrible migraine tonight.

“It's not like that,” He tries, “I just…don’t know if I’m ready to meet these people yet”

To that, Changbin falls uncharacteristically quiet. This, Seungmin recognizes, is the type of quiet that can’t be good.

“Stop that”

“I don’t even say anything!”

“Your brain cogs are spinning! I could hear it from here”

Changbin shrieks defensively, “You are not pulling the Sherlock shit on me, Kim. You could never find the mafia whenever we played!”

“What does that got to do with this?” Groaned Seungmin, that was twice! (Or thrice…) “And that’s because you are too good!”

Changbin singsongs in triumph, “That’s why you should listen. And I say bring a plus one. For moral support!”

Seungmin mocks a wide-eyed boggled look and throws one hand over his gaping mouth. The kind of exaggerated, staged response in variety shows which the editors would love to caption the screen with a 'wow, that's amazing!'

He, however, should have known better than to pose like that, because mocking him only has two outcomes. He either has to deal with a sulky Changbin the whole day or deal with the consequences of his stupid course of actions (because obviously, Changbin takes some jokes as a sort of encouragement) 

This time, it spurs on his evil mind. He abruptly stands up from his spot and hollers to the whole Department II of Cosmic Mag, “Everyone! Let’s gather around and play a game!”

Then, with a grin so wicked, he jingles a peculiarly recognizable expression, quiet enough that it is only audible to Seungmin’s ears, “Other’s misfortunes are my happiness!”

Seungmin’s thousandth groans of the day echo, swallowing the whole space. 

~

“Good morning” Changbin greets Seungmin lazily with one hand up through the rolled-down window of his black CR-V. Something about the sheepish grin across his face and his handsomely-styled dark hair (something that should be impossible for a late person, Seungmin notes) promptly grates on his nerves.

“It’s 2, Hyung. You’re almost one hour late,” was the first thing Seungmin complains about after he opens the back passenger seats’ door.

“40 minutes to be exact” Yawn, “I texted you I’ll be late”

“Whatever” He rolls his eyes and hangs his plain black tux – the same one he recycles for almost every wedding which he got a few years back from Mark & Spencer – at the back seat’s handrail. On the opposite side is Changbin’s yet another new sleek blue mohair suit.

“Nice tux. Prada again?”

“Oh, shut up”

Seungmin chuckles, let slip the annoyance from before and proceeds to take his seat at the front besides Changbin. After pulling on the seatbelt, he fiddles with the GPS to enter the address of the wedding hall. Younghyun sunbae’s wedding will be held at Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do, which would take less than an hour if the traffic allows.

Seungmin and Younghyun (or Brian, they usually called him) didn’t share classes in the college, since Younghyun was doing postgrad study when Seungmin did his bachelor.

They did, however, crossed paths through The Radio Club morning broadcasts, to which Younghyun was the DJ and Seungmin – whom Chan may or may not have brought up as the kid who sings when they hung out – was the victim who was dragged into it whenever he was caught by Younghyun passing the hallway next to the broadcast room, not having morning classes.

To say that he was the victim might be far-reaching since Seungmin never put up a real fight against it anyway. Despite the grumbles of complaints, he secretly enjoyed them though he would have rather die than to admit it.

While he types in the address of the venue according to the card in his hand, Changbin steals a peek and sighs dramatically, “Here I am, wasting my precious weekend to Goyang-si for a wedding that wasn’t even mine…”

Seungmin clicks his tongue, “It’s your idea in the first place” He looks up to Changbin with his right hand on his hip and nags, “You are _shit_ at rock paper scissors, why did you suggest that game in the first place? Also, I still don’t get it why did they send the loser instead of the winner. _What,_ am I that worthless?”

Changbin, far too used to the nagging leisurely breaks their eye contact to adjust the air-conditioner vents so that the blow of cold air can reach Seungmin’s seat better. “Because it’s the weekend. No offence, but I’d rather spend my day with my bed instead of you too”

“Ha!” Seungmin grouses, making a show to bow at Changbin in that limited narrow space and in ancient Joseon speech, he bellows, “Same goes to me, your highness”

Changbin laughs and pushes down the hand-brake, veering the car out from the side parking lot to the direction instructed by the robotic lady voice from the GPS.

“Who’d you rather bring anyway?”

Seungmin hums as he takes his moment to put more thought at the distraction Changbin provides. There are certainly a lot of good-looking people in the office. Seungmin thinks first of his desk-mate, Seungkwan. They began working around the same time, and while he enjoys his company, he would prefer to deal with someone less… _curious._

Probably, “Wonwoo sunbae?” The four-years-older-than-him sunbae, who actually wear glasses for his sight than fashion. “Handsome, thoughtful and you know,” He sighs dreamily to emphasize, “… _tall_. The best perfect package”

Changbin turns only to roll his eyes at him, offended. “Like you’d ever talk to him at the office”

Seungmin pretends not to hear that, he’s good at it. “Or maybe… Hoshi. Oh, Hoshi would be so fun. Everyone would love him” This one is a staple answer, Seungmin doesn’t even think much about it, because of course Hoshi is the answer to everything.

“Are you bringing him to see your parents?” Changbin shrieks gleefully, barely manages to keep his focus on the road. “Be honest, Seungmin, is this not that fake-date thing?”

“You are the one who asks!”

“You’ll probably end up ditching him somewhere along the way because he was too loud anyways!”

Seungmin tries his best not to, but the temptation to agree with this Changbin’s point is _too_ strong, he ends up nodding in tiny. Maybe Hoshi isn’t the answer to everything after all.

“Or– “

“Or…” Changbin beats him to it, “You could ask that blonde guy to come with you”

The car stops half a meter away from the white line at the red traffic light of a T-junction, jostling Seungmin a little bit ahead when Changbin presses the brake too suddenly. He is about to scold him when Changbin faces him, a sickeningly sweet smile plastered on his face and props his right hand on the twelve of the steering wheel before him.

“That tall blonde guy? You know, the _romantic reunion_?”

“Oh god,” Seungmin groans. “Stop saying that!”

“But it’s true! Ah, I still can’t forget that. If that isn’t love, right, Seungmin-chan?”

Seungmin surrenders. He slumps into his seat, throws both his hands up in defeat and closes his eyes. Changbin merrily scoots closer and coos at his reddening cheeks and his laughs blare in the car at the same time Seungmin whirls to face the window and pushes his face away.

The light turns green right there and then, so as the thoughts of the tall blonde guy, Hwang Hyunjin in his head.

Seungmin’s acquaintance since the first semester of college, a roommate for the whole of sophomore year and a best friend, who Seungmin had chanced upon since last two autumns after years of mislays.

He was out on another company dinner of the month at the Korean restaurant a few blocks away from their office. It was almost 10 p.m., when Seungmin who sat at the furthest end of the table, stole a glance at his watch. His co-workers, all in high spirit were raring to go for more drinks as they egged on the team leader to take another sip of the alcohol, while Seungmin cursed in his head at _these married men who just wouldn’t go home_.

Hoshi, the life of the party – likes to drink but extremely light-weighted – stood up from his seat in the middle of the table to whisk up another speech that Seungmin’s head barely registered. His office mates were laughing at some nonsense he spewed when Changbin shot up, red in the face and hollered to the whole restaurant.

“The day is not over yet” He slurred, then turned dramatically towards Seungmin’s direction and declared openly, “Today is our precious baby, Kim Seungmin’s birthday”

_Oh, shit. This can never be good,_ he thought and as if he had just pressed a buzzer, Changbin began to lead their co-workers and the other visitors to clap hands with him and sang Seungmin a slurred, off-tuned birthday song. Ignoring his daggers of death, the drunken man simply cupped his cheeks and cheered with others as he was urged to down more birthday shots.

He was pretty much as drunk as everyone else by the next hour. Head spinning and limbs trembly, he stood up to his feet and stared with laser-focus at the entrance of the restaurant. Seungmin made exactly three steps before Changbin clasped onto his feet and yanked his backpack down onto his lap and snorted, “No one can go home yet”

_Seungmin wanted to cry._

“Cigarette break,” was what he managed.

Outside, standing slightly to the left of the front of the restaurant, Seungmin took long deep inhales of the night air, rubbing at his arms a few times for the chill that slowly seeped into his bone. He reached for the cigarette and lighter from his pocket and lighted it up, and immediately sighed into the bitter comfort of the first drag.

He glimpsed at the dark alleys on his right and left, and saw nothing more than what the streetlights could provide. But then again, nothing else more than drunken men in buttons-up like himself, waddling in dizzying stance were there.

The train would have stopped running by the time they were done. _Should I get a cab home?_ Seungmin wondered.

He took another puff of smoke, the same time the sliding door from behind opened and then, “Seungminie?”

_Alcohol dampened your reflexes_ , was what inscribed in his driving school textbook. But at that moment, like a whiplash, he veered around to the call of his name in the familiar voice that he could recognize in a split-second even after years.

“… Hyunjin?”

Inarguably, standing there in the space from the small opening of the wooden sliding door, was Hwang Hyunjin. As unfairly beautiful as ever, even with poor backlight from the inside of the restaurant and reddish dim glow from the hanging signboard. He probably grew one or two inches taller than the last Seungmin remembered, and now he had his hair – dirty-blond perhaps – up in a man-bun.

Hyunjin took a cautious step forward and that simple action set the alarms blaring in his head, but feet glued to the ground, frozen.

This wasn’t how he wanted to see him again – honestly, Seungmin was not even sure if he wanted to see him again – but Hyunjin was drawing closer by minutes.

_He should run._

Seungmin was the biggest prick who left without a word, remember?

The one who took a year break from college after the break-up, who changed his phone number, deactivated all his SNS accounts and went as far as moving to Jeju to live with his working sister there, leaving behind everything and everyone he had in Seoul, including Hwang Hyunjin.

It was his best decision at that moment, but with Hyunjin before him, glassy eyes, frowns in between brows and trembling lips, Seungmin wasn’t that sure anymore.

Amidst his efforts to keep up with overwhelming emotions that befallen him all at once, Hyunjin’s tipsy mind managed to see past that. A lazy grin slowly spread across his face, his voice barely reached Seungmin’s ears when he said, “Happy birthday, Seung” and plunged forward to wrap him within his arms – in Hyunjin’s as inhuman as ever, arms of succour.

“I missed you, Seung,” Hyunjin murmured and his body slumped, fully relaxed onto Seungmin’s, passed out.

That night, after Changbin’s relentless offers to give _you-and-your-friend_ a ride home, Seungmin ended up dragging a 6-inch foot Hyunjin (who haven’t woken up at all to the commotions in the diner or the harsh knock of his head on Changbin’s car’s roof) up to his place.

The next morning, Seungmin watched with attentive eyes as Hyunjin swallowed the hangover pills he handed him off. Hands then clasped tight around the smooth surface of the glass, eyes trained on the vinyl flooring of the boards underneath their feet.

Hyunjin hadn’t spoken a word since he woke up this morning, except for the quiet _‘oh’_ and the brief shock cast on his face when Seungmin sauntered across the floor to join him on the bed.

He shouldn’t have expected anything. He shouldn’t have hoped to hear at least one more word from his mouth. _Hell,_ he’d even prepared his heart for Hyunjin to storm out of his place of spite at seeing his face again, but the disappointment – more at himself than anything else – when he just sat there, silent as stone, surged up either way.

He could have said something, or anything at all, but he couldn’t afford to just barge back into the other’s life. He didn’t deserve it.

The choice was for Hyunjin to make.

The dead-air stretched on, warping the whole space inch by inch as minutes passed by until the ringtone from Seungmin’s phone on the kitchen counter slipped in through the small opening of the door. It wasn’t anything important. It may be another Changbin’s _‘did you get laid’_ stupid call, but Seungmin rose to his feet, rushed by the stifling turmoil in his mind when a big, rough hand tugged at his wrist, stunning him on the spot.

Behind him, eyes on the floor, Hyunjin begged, “Don’t leave again, please.”

Seungmin swallowed down the lump in his throat and the conscience that plugged his mind. “Shouldn’t you be mad?”

“Can I be mad later?” Hyunjin countered and glanced up. “I hope this isn’t just another dream, Seung,” he said, voice breaking down at the cry of his name.

Seungmin’s heart clenched at the painful whisper, like wet clothes that were wrung out, twist and twist and twist, spilling out all the pain that was inside.

The rest was muscle memory. Seungmin embracing Hyunjin in his arms, drawing soothing circles on his back the same way Hyunjin comforted him years ago but this time, he promised. “It’s okay I’m here. I won’t leave”

~

“So?” Changbin drawls out, asking in the vaguest way as possible as if Seungmin could immediately catch on onto whatever he means.

And Seungmin, as always, _does_ get what he means. “Hyunjin has got nothing to do with this”

“If this is that fake-date thing, I would have thought that he is doing things the wrong way”

“I told you this isn’t that. I am simply attending a wedding, which I would _gladly_ turn up alone if not for you and your stupid game” Seungmin seethes, shaking off his head and reaches for the onion flavoured potato chips. “And what do you mean he’s doing things wrong?”

Changbin’s eyes light up at the bitten bait. “He likes you, right?”

Seungmin chokes on the salty junks and scrambles to gulp half of the mineral water he brought with him.

“Honestly though,” Changbin steals some chips from the canister and stuffs it in his mouth. “I thought you guys are working out since you ditched me for him before”

“That was months ago!”

Only when Changbin turns to snickers at his response does his mind belatedly registers the mistake he makes. A double-edged, bullet response which plays out just the way Seo Changbin has been anticipating for. But what done is done so he reasons, “Besides, you’re taking me to that place again”

The same, a few blocks away, go-to company dinner restaurant.

“Hey, I take you to shabu-shabu sometimes!” Changbin yells and earns himself triple slaps on the forearm when he takes his eyes off the road. Once recovered, he relentlessly adds, “But I guess, udon and soju under the tent is your type of romance, huh?”

“Oh, shut up”

That was one time! A time when Hyunjin was leaving for a show in Japan and he’d asked him to meet up for a drink the night before. Once! Changbin’s supposed tent-romance-thing was once and of course, he had to be the one who spotted them.

It was around last year’s December, Seungmin’s department had been tasked with a big role for their magazine’s new year slashed anniversary edition, which brought upon weeks of working late hours in the office.

One night, in the middle of editing, Seungmin had picked up Hyunjin’s call to say that he was down by the lobby. At first, he had pressed down the ground floor button of the elevator with steel determination to take only ten minutes break from work. But Hyunjin waved his hands with a smile so wide and cheeks red from the cold outside, an extra blue knitted muffler in his hands ( _for you_ , he had said) and that was all it took to crush Seungmin’s resolution to pieces.

If Hyunjin could come all the way to see him when he had a flight to catch tomorrow, couldn’t he do just as much?

Seungmin ended up racing upstairs to pick his jacket and briefcase, to sit face-to-face across Hwang Hyunjin at the small table in the soju tent close by. They were sitting on the last table, near the plastic door which was slightly uncomfortable because people flooded in or out too close in their perimeter, but anything that kept them out from the growing chills of early winter was considered a blessing.

“Don’t you have a flight tomorrow?” he questioned as he poured down soju in their respective glasses. “Is it okay to drink?”

The owner ahjumma with two metal trays balanced on both hands dropped by their table, and Hyunjin helped unloaded their orders of two steaming bowls of udon and a plate of rolled eggs on it. Seungmin had just mumble a curt _thank you_ when Hyunjin stabbed a slice of the eggs with his chopsticks and quickly chucked it down his throat.

“Just here to make sure you eat before I left” Hyunjin sniggled when Seungmin gawped at him, wide-eyed and mouth full.

“But–”

“No but” interrupted Hyunjin with a reassuring smile on his lips. “You’re so stressed lately. Now, drink. I’ll take care of you tonight”

The words slipped from his mouth so naturally, like the casual ‘good morning’ greeting Seungmin bid at his officemates when he ran over them in the elevator in the morning, but the speed his cheeks flushed hot and red was almost absurd.

Seungmin could even feel the tip of his ears burned crimson.

In an attempt to conceal the ridiculous blushes on his face, Seungmin hurriedly downed the first shot of soju and groaned at the first bitter taste on his throat.

The first turned to two, and by the third shot, he loosened up enough to complain about his piling workloads. Hyunjin tagged along in his cursing spree at the superiors who dumped their works on his plate (which successfully earned satisfied grins from the giggling drunk Seungmin) and shove him food whenever he saw the chance. 

By the time they reached his place, though sloshed with alcohol and limbs akimbo, Seungmin felt unusually clear-headed as he was gently laid down on the bed. The light that seeped through the semi-blackout curtains and the bedside lamp was the only guide in that dark early winter night, and Seungmin couldn’t see much but Hyunjin.

Hyunjin, who wordlessly help to change him out of his work shirt to a fresh set of pyjamas. Hyunjin, who smelled of chicken gizzards and mint-scented shampoo. Hyunjin, who knelt on the floor at the edge of his bed and levelled his gaze with his very own warm brown eyes.

If he was at least half-sober, Seungmin would have slapped his cheeks to knock some sense into his head to _stop being creepy_ , but he was far too gone to bother. Miles too blitzed to stop his thumb from tracing the slanted corner of his left eye and the mole underneath it.

If he was not intoxicated with gin in his veins, Seungmin would have flinched, or squawked when Hyunjin’s bigger hand – _was his hand always this big?_ – rested reassuringly onto the back of his.

“I caused you a lot of heartaches, didn’t I?” He found himself whispering, and was flashed with a small smile in return.

If he wasn’t drunk out of his skull, Seungmin would probably shove him away when Hyunjin lifted his hand to kiss tenderly at each of the knuckles, the gesture that personally felt too intimate, far too frightening for his lucid mind, but that night, he held his stance, closed his eyes and hummed in content at the presence of a particular Hwang Hyunjin by his side.

Seungmin couldn’t recall how did he fell asleep nor when did Hyunjin leave, but when he woke up the next morning and noted the pills and lukewarm soup on the kitchen counter, he came to grips with the fuzzy, blossoming feelings he harboured for Hwang Hyunjin.

Which essentially means that, “… He’s not doing things wrong”

“ _Oh_ …” Changbin lifts one of his eyebrows, let himself lost in his thoughts for seconds too long before he questions, “If not, then what’s stopping you?”

Seungmin falls quiet all at once. Fingers on his lap unwind to tug and twist at the tail-end of his striped black and blue necktie, the same way his heart spider-webs into combs of hesitancy. Like preys that get glued on the stringy thread, the fear that shrouds his being blends with it.

With a long inhale, Seungmin relents. “What if I haven’t moved on yet?” Biting at his lower lip. “I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to jump into this, thinking that I am ready but ended up hurting him instead”

“Like what happened with Wooyoung?” Changbin questions without missing a beat, needle-like focused eyes on the side mirror as he veers the car into the first exit of the round-about.

_“He’s a nice guy, Hyung. I’m really sorry it didn’t work out”_ – Seungmin apologised with a painful smile, six months after he introduced him to Wooyoung, a friend from school three years ago. They had been going out regularly by that time, and Changbin vividly remembered Wooyoung, with eyes hazed in love-bug clouds telling him a week before that he loves the way Seungmin laughs so prettily with his mouth open, how proper he speaks and how intent he listens.

“Did he ever tell you what happened?” Seungmin’s lips tighten in a thin line, waiting for his response.

Changbin chuckles, “He just told me to stop setting him up on blind-dates”

For some time, only the cheery voices acting a skit for the advertisement echo inside the car. It’s laughable, how he is in this sorry state of affairs while the chatters on the radio are making a mountain on a molehill about health drinks that succeeded to make them feeling two decades younger and healthier.

The scene slowly tunes in to the serene voice of the female DJ and Seungmin takes it as a cue for him to start. “This is probably TMI, but I cried when we tried to have sex”

The recollection from three years ago reruns in his mind, and like any other time whenever the play button is pressed on, his stomach churns with deep-seated guilt. His body – stark-naked against the grey sheets – pulled to a sitting position and rocked gently from side to side in Wooyoung’s arms, while he showered him with gentle chants of _it’s okay, hey it’s okay._ “I honestly thought that I was over it. That I was ready to date someone, but it turns out I couldn’t do it without thinking about my ex”

Changbin ponders over this new piece of information to fit it together with his friend’s drunken ramblings of _I would wait for him, would wait for the whole life for him to fall in love with me_ and then everything clicks. He spares Seungmin a couple more minutes before he delves, “You are afraid that the same thing is going to happen to Hyunjin?”

“… I don’t want to hurt him, Hyung”

To tell you the truth, Changbin doesn’t need to hesitate to be at odds with him. More than he is paid homage to, he is a keen-eyed observer who knows by sight the signs that someone is in love. The countenance of which he could only see in Wooyoung but not Seungmin when they were both dating.

He sees how bright the younger smiles when his phone lit up with new texts from Hyunjin these past few months. How he is living in the present, laughing freely with the other guys instead of brooding with a blank look when out drinking. How an overseas phone call is all he needs when he is swamped with the stress of piling works.

Or that one time, when he had to pull off from the supposed-to-be-sting’s-operation to sneak up on the pair because Hyunjin had this gentle gaze on his eyes while he listened with rapt attention to whatever Seungmin said (he felt like an intruder of a very private moment and with a conscience, left without a word)

The car slows down as the left lane merges to a single road 500 meters in front and Changbin glimpses at Seungmin on his left before he speaks, “Isn’t love means leaving a part of you with the other and vice versa?” He shoots him an encouraging smile and a gentle pat on his thigh, “But there is a difference between lingering feeling and a soft spot, you know?”

Seungmin has never entertained that possibility in his head. Soft spot; a sentimental weakness, a vulnerable point. Last year, when he went out for a dinner with his high-school friends and Lee Daehwi suddenly asked, _‘would you still wish for your ex’s happiness if they’d been cheating on you?’_ to which his immediate response was _‘if I’d loved that person so much, then sure,’_ was that counted as a soft spot?

He is so preoccupied with his thoughts, Changbin has to clear his throat to regain his attention before carefully implores, “Why break-up if you don’t mind me asking?”

Seungmin chews lightly at his lower lip. The simple words to answer it would be insecurities, jealousy and lack of trust; the vicious cycle. Past Kim Seungmin, behind the mask of indifference and snarky remarks, had deep-rooted self-doubt. He rendered himself as a completely average person in terms of talent, look, sociability and brain. The only time he felt invincible was when he used to play baseball, where the adults vouched that he would one day pitch a ball in US Major League.

When the dream burnt down to ashes, Seungmin was crippled inside until a certain Lee Minho appeared. He was that knight in the shining armour, the one that swam across the lake to free him of the Nessie. Minho anchored him to the Earth, a string to his kite, a shoulder for him to lean against, but the downside of this, was Minho was all there was to him.

Minho was all he had to love about himself.

On the other hand, ever-the-popular-guy, Minho had the Australian Chan from the music faculty, Vernon with ten allergies, beautiful Nayun from the business department and the bunch from the dance team as his close friends – all were good looking, extremely talented extraordinary people. Amongst them, Seungmin felt out of place, like a fish that jumped off the pond to writhe meaninglessly on the ground. Like that time in school when he was the only one in his class who had braces and was laughed at when he talked with a lisp.

Minho wished for him to get along with his friends, but it was hard when cold stares were jabbing him from head to toe when he walked side to side with Minho at parties. The snickers at his outfit – his sweaters were scoffed at, and when he put on a leather jacket, he was mocked a copy-cat.

_“You’re just overthinking it”_ – Minho would brush him off.

At some point, the pricks of discomfort and jealousy when Jisung – who had confessed to Minho in early freshman year – landed his hand on Minho’s thigh or the back of his chair, or both of them laughing at their inside jokes (as if nothing had happened between them) was unnerving him. Not to count the circle’s blatant partiality for Jisung, they might as well scream to his face to say that he was a better fit for Minho than him.

Seungmin eventually gave up to fit himself into the crew _(_ _except Chan)_ Excuses, either concrete or flimsy was fitted out whenever Minho invited him to join his friends for a hang-out. It worked until the midterm of first semester sophomore year, but from then, passive-aggressive remarks of how Seungmin was taking his efforts for granted started to pick up and the same name – Hwang Hyunjin – being brought up as _the one you’d rather spent time with instead of your boyfriend_ fizzled out of his control. Worse, when Minho suddenly asked him to move out with him at the beginning of the second term of sophomore year.

_“I can’t just move out. We planned to live together for one year, Minho. How should Hyunjin pay the rent if I moved out? How is he going to find a new housemate? Isn’t it selfish to just let him on his own?”_ – Seungmin protested and Minho left, slamming the door right on his face. 

Public flirting with Jisung, of all people, whenever they fought, had the worst effect on Seungmin. Maybe the insecurity of being the talentless person that buried deep down inside him resurfaced, or his friends taunt about Jisung being a better choice for Minho had messed up his brain, but Seungmin ended up crawling into Minho’s arms every time. To reach him out first to say that he loves him, to open his door to a hammered Lee Minho and let himself sobbed into the pleasure of having Minho inside as he begged him to fuck him harder like he loved him.

The on-again, off-again things since the last few months before the break-up were horribly exhausting, but when they laid close to each other, to hear Minho’s soft whisper that _he loves him so much_ and the feeling of his strong arms on his back and his nape erased all the harsh shouting and sleepless nights to nothingness.

At that moment, all Seungmin thought was Minho, and how much he loved him.

~

“Seungmin?” Changbin calls, dragging him out from the loops of flashbacks. “You don’t have to tell me anything if that’s making you uncomfortable”

He is silent by the driver’s seat, doesn’t even hum to single lyrics of Half Moon by Dean – his favourite song – that is blasting in the car’s stereo.

Seungmin trusts him though, and he wants to hear those wise words again. His voice almost a whisper when he starts, “We… didn’t trust each other enough”

_“Yes, he liked me before but we both agreed to settle at being friends”_ – Seungmin closed his eyes, shook his head in utter disbelief and walked out from Minho and Chan’s shared apartment when he insisted that he attended Jisung’s parents’ anniversary party simply as a mere friend.

_“Kkami is warded. I have to go”_ – Seungmin rushed to pull a sweater over his head and grabbed his bag. Minho had refused his kiss this time. Seungmin ended up telling his retreating figure that he loves him.

Seungmin never understood why Minho would put the blame on Hyunjin every single time they argued but maybe, he did get a gist of what was in Minho’s mind. To be exact, a month before they broke up, the morning after the swimming team’s congratulatory party when Hyunjin recoiled from his touch and dashed away from their place upon seeing the hickeys on his neck.

Perhaps if he’d caught on to the meaning behind the worried lines of Hyunjin’s unapproving stares earlier, he could stop their relationship from souring away.

Perhaps, by that time their relationship was already beyond irreparable.

~

“… We were insecure and jealous” he gnaws harsher at the bottom lip between his teeth, “We ended up hurting each other”

He doesn’t need to turn his head to imagine the faraway look fixed on Changbin’s face right now. The harsh inhale and the lack of the usual reflexive verbal cues is enough for him to know that Changbin is taking him seriously.

The car is slowing down behind the long line of the left exit of the highway to Goyang-si when Changbin starts talking again. “That happened a long time ago. You’ve grown up, you’re no longer the same kid who doubted himself”

A ghost of a smile on his lips and a hint of proud in his tone. “You know what went wrong, and you’re not afraid to admit your fault. You’ll do better this time”

Strangely, the chant no matter how simple and straightforward it is, hit like fresh air. Like the relief that immediately washes over him when the dentist asserts that pain-relief pills would help with his wisdom teeth removal though the same comments online would never convince him the same.

Their car moves to pass the large green signboard with a labelled ‘Goyang-si’ and a straight thick arrow when Changbin questions, “Do you believe in Hyunjin?”

“I… I do.” A few seconds is all he needs to blurt out the answer. Soft gasp follows shortly after he gets his bearing, flustered, taken aback, overwhelmed at how short he needs to ponder over the question.

Of how right and how sure the answer has been.

“I…I do believe him” He repeats quietly for it to reach his ears again and be hundred per cent sure that this time is not a dream.

“Then that’s fine, right?”

~

A myriad of congratulatory wreaths wishing for a happy marriage line up the front of the hotel hall, liven up the view. Seungmin, however, heeds this no mind as he drops his envelope and quickly trudges inside with Changbin tugging right behind.

The walk down the aisle and the exchanging vows has ended by the time they step in and he briefly scans the room to note both Younghyun and his bride, walking hands in hands with their parents in traditional hanboks on the right side of the hall.

Thrills of panic begin to thrum in his temple, rushing in like the air that seeps out from a small prick of the balloon.

Is he thinking straight before making this decision?

What was he thinking exactly? Just because Chan would surely attend the wedding, does that mean that Minho is going to be here as well?

A tug on his hand pulls Seungmin out of his panic frenzy and manoeuvres his stunned figure away from the well-dressed people that moves in-and-out of the hall to the left side. Seo Changbin snaps his finger in front of his face and cracks up when his jaw slackens and has to shake off his head to dispel the nerves in his bloodstream.

“Relax, okay. Don’t worry, you’ll get this”

To that, he nods and gets himself into the right frame of mind. Seungmin is a man on a mission. It’s a do-or-die, courtesy be damned. Brazenfaced, he strides straight away to the first table on the floor and clenches his teeth as he bows his head, trying to catch a glimpse of each faces around the table.

This is embarrassing, he thinks, his mother would have whacked the back of his head if she’d ever stumble on this scene when he should have at least greeted the groom and his family instead of sticking his head to other peoples’ ways.

His ears are getting scarlet and while he bestows another apology to a bewildered young couple with a small baby at the fourth table on the left side of the hall, heavens above decided to show him mercy, in the form of a hand clasping on his shoulder.

Seungmin springs up like a flash and meets a familiar, broad-shouldered, now black-haired Chan, smiling down at him with his signature set of dimples. He staggers a step behind and let the lights from the high ceiling on the space justifies the man standing right in front of him.

An amused grin and a nose scrunch are the warnings he gets before Chan pulls him close in a warm, tight hug. It catches him off-the-cuff, but he slumps into it regardless and breathes in the comfort the older offers. When they pull away, he regards him with a knowing smile and put forward, “He’s here too”

As if on cue, Minho strolls in their direction, eyes glued down on his hands that fiddles aimlessly with a purple handkerchief, mouth moving in inaudible mumbles.

_Mumbles,_ one of Lee Minho things, Seungmin’s mind helpfully registers.

Lee Minho still has his hair dyed in the same shade of brown. As eternally ethereal as ever, even without the sun and the wind to sculpt him like the Greek god. Those cat-like bright eyes pierce into his own with burning ambers as he stands there, as real as the shudders and goosebumps that travel down his spine.

~

They stand side by side on the balcony that overlooks splotches of Middle Eastern palm trees and immaculately trimmed low shrubs that make up the hotel landscape (Thanks to Chan, who literally shoved them out of the hall when they did nothing but staring at each other’s dress shoes)

The distance between their bodies could have fit a healthy young man, but the air that hangs heavy is more pressing than the space. They haven’t spoken a word since, and every second that passed feels like a pebble that adds onto the heap of the burden that weighs down on his shoulders, ripping him off any plan in his mind.

Well, not that he has a concrete one in his head either.

The most interaction he gets out of this years-long, nerve-wracking reunion with an old flame is the brief once-over Minho spares at him before looking away and fixes his attention on the pack of college students down the tarred road. Duffel bags slung over their shoulders as they banter loudly and giggle fondly. From the corner of his eyes, Seungmin timidly traces the delicate slope of his nose, the high of his cheekbone, the sharp of his jaw and the straight line of his lips.

“You look good” He blurts out, but he means it, wholeheartedly. Minho ages gloriously. His sturdy, lean build is framed handsomely in the dark fitted purple suit, (he had never been a fan before, _too stifling_ , he said) the subtle eye make-up enhances the mischievous glint in his eyes but setting aside these changes, is the fluffy chocolate bangs that bounce on the top of his head. It reminds Seungmin of the years they spent, that this is the same Lee Minho he once waited for at the train station during summer break. 

“You look just the same”

“That’s mean. You don’t even bother to look at me. I’m sure I look better than before”

The retort comes in a split-second, this time in a voice so much softer. “You look just as pretty as you’ve ever been, Kim Seungmin”

The sudden praise renders him speechless, throws him in a loop and Seungmin blinks repeatedly at the blue sky and the fluffy white clouds stretched far in front of him. Minho’s voice is soft, gentle like the old blanket he has at home which gets softer with every wash. He looks to his right and meets his eyes all at once.

Head tilted to the right and a smile coloured his face, “How have you been?” 

Warmth blossoms in his heart, like the nostalgic sentimental feelings that swamped over his being as he flicked through the photo albums of when he was a small, bright kid without a care in the world.

“I’m good” He grins, “How about you, Minho hyung?”

Instead of answering, his eyes soften and Minho remains there, looking _, searching_ into his soul. He resembles that boy again, the one who watched worriedly over high-schooler Kim Seungmin who screamed and cried in his bedroom on one rainy evening. He reminds him of the junior year Lee Minho who called his name, clasped and unclasped his hands while he struggled to speak down the stairs of his dorm.

Then the image breaks as he says, “…I’ve never told you that I’m sorry”

Seungmin feels queasy, like the first time he left his sister’s place to the seashore, but ended up breathing into the paper bag on the cab ride back. Or when he was in a one-to-four interview, where the panels in front of him asked why did he take a year break from school. In two ticks, akin to the relief that courses through his vein when he safely reached his sister’s porch or when he managed to answer interviewers’ queries without a hitch, the ache leaves his shoulders and he smiles, “It’s not like you never try to say it. I was the one that never gives you the chance. Besides, we are both at fault, Hyung. I should apologise too”

_five years ago_

Seungmin gently carded the soft locks of Minho who laid limply on his chest with the little remnants of strength he had left. The quiet ups and downs of their breathing as they came down from their highs were matching and he hummed contently at the soft puffs of air that should have tickle but didn’t on his body.

It rooted him, anchored him to the Earth that this was undoubtedly, a reality. They haven’t been fighting for the longest time since forever and Minho’s graduation was drawing nearer by day. The romances of moving out with him, like Minho had proposed a few days before, had been painting its own images in his head.

Of waking up with Minho’s sleep-bloated face by his side, of lazy morning kisses under the faint light of sun passing through the small gap of the curtains, of Minho’s breakfast pancakes and eggs, dancing and fooling around while hanging up the laundries and doing the dishes, and petting Soonie to sleep as she purred on his lap while watching the telly.

Seungmin sounded like a simp. A simp that was intoxicated with Minho, who felt like his heart was going to swell and burst out of happiness with each second passing with them resting close like this. Slowly, the thought that he had mulled over, again and again, while packing up his clothes and books yesterday slipped back into his mind.

Maybe it was the serotonin, or endorphin, or whatever the magical hormones that swirled in his head after the bliss, did the trick. This second, when they tangled close to each other, after hearing words of love and reassurances from the person that matters the most, Seungmin was feeling extremely brave, as if he could bungee jump without a rope and would still survive.

His voice rang in the grey-painted room. “Hyung. I’m wondering…if you’re free next Sunday?”

“Next Sunday?” Minho lifted his head off his chest. Hair sticking out in weird tufts, face flushed red and his eyes rolled to the back, thinking. “Oh, it’s Jisung’s party” He yawned, “It’s his birthday”

As if the cat caught his tongue _,_ words fizzled out from his train of thoughts and Seungmin’s fingers on his scalp halted, frozen.

“What’s wrong?” The blankets underneath them rustled when he shifted forward to sweep the sweaty bangs off his forehead in a gentle caress, tender and careful with unwavering focus. “Seungminie?”

Seungmin loved him like this. So soft, so gentle and so loving. _A way to thank you,_ he had answered with a peck on his forehead when Seungmin asked why did he become such a sweetheart after sex.

Seungmin braved himself, “Do you want to go on a date with me?”

“Sure” Minho agreed without a hitch. His easy laughs bristled in the room, and Seungmin could feel the vibration in his chest when he moved closer to nuzzle their noses. “The party is at night. We could go for a date that morning”

But the thing was, “The date is at night”

Minho instantly deflated, pulling away with a scowl in between his eyebrows that was gone in less than no time. He took one deep breath and planted a kiss on Seungmin’s cheek, “Let’s not do this, okay”

The jiff of chagrin in his eyes dampened his spirit, a striking contrast to the fervent, burning sensation he felt under his skin wherever Minho peppered with kisses and worships. He shouldn’t dwell on this, but the stings of dejection soared up and zipped his mouth shut.

Seungmin shifted his eyes to the bedside table where his phone resided instead.

“Baby,” Minho coaxes, carefully lifting his chin to meet his eyes. “Come on, let’s go to the party, hm? It’s his birthday. He’ll be glad to have you there”

“Can’t you spend the day with Jisung and spare the night for me instead?” Seungmin hated that he sounded like a distressed, utterly-helpless-maiden in perturbing old folk-tales. How his eyes didn’t dare to meet the burning ambers of Minho’s eyes. “Please, Hyung. I won’t bug you at all in the morning, I promise. Just spare me some time that night, please?”

“Minnie,” Minho called out again, angling his face so he didn’t have anywhere else to run. A devious smirk appeared on his face when he retained his full attention, “You could just say you want to have sex with me”

“Oh my God! It’s not that, you idiot!” Seungmin burst out laughing, pushing him away with way-too-fond-to-be-real kicks on his chest and fall back onto the mattress with heartened hums, all the while ignoring Minho’s theatrical hurls on the floor.

Catching his breath, Seungmin spoke to the ceiling. “It’s Kim Jae Hyuk first game with the Nexen. This Sunday, at eight.”

“Seriously?”

He winced. “I know. You are right, we call always see another game”

“No!” Image of Minho, with a fizz of dark brown hair, wide-eyes and slackened jaw entered his plane of view. “You mean the Nexen? The Nexen Heroes? You sure you want to see the game? You’re okay with that?”

Despite the drill of questions shot on his way, the worries laced in each question mark, all Seungmin could see was the blinding brightness of Minho’s eyes and the excited curve of his red, cherry lips. He couldn’t stop himself from surging forward to capture his lips in a kiss.

“Yes, Hyung” He breathed, “I’m sure”

Seungmin wouldn’t trade the mirth in his eyes and the joy in his smile when Minho nodded and reciprocated his kiss with his own for the world.

^

This was the third.

Bang fucking Chan had been knocking – no, banging – on his fucking door for the fucking fifth time at eight-barely-nine fucking morning.

“What the hell, Chan? Just get in” Minho shouted with eyes shut and fucking hell, did his throat hurt.

Minho hated parties, no – he hated parties with justifications with all his might. Just because you had a reason (say, your birthday) to recklessly spew out money on drinks with your goddamn parents’ student allowances, didn’t mean you should drag your goddamned friends to get wasted in your scheme of swallowing a whole crate of alcohol.

He will have to sit Han Jisung down and have a proper positively educative talk with him later.

Minho’s skull was splitting open with awful throbs that his monthly migraine couldn’t even hold a candle to. Fuck, his gut was killing him. Wait, his breaths were killing him. What the hell was this fucking smell? Did he vomit on the bed or something? Minho turned over on the bed and grunted when he slipped his eyes open in the middle of it.

Fucking hell, was the sun out to kill him as well?

“Minho” Chan called out from the opened door, voice edged with irritation.

_What the hell?_

“Skip it” He didn’t need the nagging now. All he could focus on was to get himself up so that, by the end of this hour, he could tend to the throbs in his head on a clean patch of bed instead of the filthy puke.

“Seungmin’s here”

Minho glanced at Chan as he strived to not wobble on his feet. “Just tell him I’m not well. He’s going to fucking kill me”

Chan strode across the room to level him eyes-to-eyes and half-yelled, “He’d been waiting since the sunrise. Seriously, Minho? I would have fucking killed you if he didn’t”

The usual trace of warmth in his voice was wiped out for frustration, and somewhere along the line, Minho’s blood boiled. Chan didn’t wait for his response before throwing his arms up in surrender and turned on his heels with shakes of his head.

“I’ll let him in, then I’ll leave. Sort this out yourself and don’t mess up”

He eyed in defeat at Chan’s retreating figure that left through the gap of his bedroom door. Exchange of whispers from the living room carried through the gap and Minho sighed. Of all days, Kim Seungmin decided to barge into his place on Monday’s morning, conveniently when he was tormented with the worst hungover yet. Sure, he loves parties, but Minho wasn't an alcoholic per se. Partly because he could never stand the nauseating effect the day after and mostly because Kim Seungmin wouldn’t let him live through it in peace.

Well, the past few months had been different, he cringed. At some point, he imposed on the fact that Seungmin couldn’t refuse him whenever he stood in front of his door, hammered out of his mind even if they were in the middle of another spat. All he needed was to push on his button, made him jealous, like letting Jisung closer than it should be. It was a foul play, he knew, but if that was all he needed to get Seungmin back, he’d do it all over again.

At least these past few weeks had been rainbows and cherry blossoms. Seungmin would have forgiven him this one time, right?

_Wrong_ , because a cross remark was thrown at him right there and then.

“You were drunk”

Fuck Han Jisung and his birthday. Forget educative talk, he’s going to split his skull open, literally.

“No shit, sherlock” he scoffed in response.

Seungmin repeated each word pointedly, as if he could get his message across just like that, “You were drunk, Lee Minho”

“Yes, Seungmin” Minho exhaled aloud and stubbornly met his eyes. His face was short of the usual disapproving frown, but he ignored the first red flag and added, “As you can see, I’m bearing the weights. Do I look like I’m having fun? No, right? Because I am not, so if you are going to nag me about drinking again, pick sometime later”

Seungmin remained silent but the mask of impassivity on his face shattered when his teeth worried over his lips. Minho caught on right away, sighing as he reached forward to thumb at it.

“Stop that. You’re going to bleed”

For a moment he was allowed to before Seungmin choked a gasp and yanked his wrist away. “Don’t you have something you want to tell me?”

Minho was tired, honestly. He had a goddamned worst hungover of his 24-year-old life, and at 9 something in the darned morning, flanked by the struggles to keep his balance and to fend himself off from how disgusting he felt, looked and smelled, of-fucking-course Seungmin had to ask him the world’s worst, most complicated question.

He didn’t have the energy to ponder on this, so he forwent it all together. “I’m sorry, okay?”

_Wrong turn,_ his mind helpfully supplied when Seungmin audibly gritted his teeth and seethed, “Sorry? I waited for you for hours last night outside the stadium. Out in front of your door till the light hit and not a single call or a text at least? And all I get was a sorry?!”

_Shit_. Shit, shit, shit.

Fuck, fuck Han Jisung and his drinks.

Kim Seungmin in front of him was fuming, straight out enraged. The harsh manner of how his chest rose and fell when he ceased talking, lips shut tight in a straight line while his eyes pierced into his own, seeking something, an explanation or comfort or anything at all was the tell-tales. It seared Minho down, lurched his heart forward when he realized how once again, he was the reason to see that expression painted across his beautiful face.

“I’m sorry. I really am sorry” He repeated, then for lack of better response he added, “We were drinking that evening. Since I won’t be there for the party, we celebrated early and played games and all but then I… I got drunk and lost track of time and I… I forgot about that…”

“Forgot… about that” Seungmin echoed to make sense of it to himself than anything. He chanted, “Forgot about our date, forgot about me, forgot about us. You could just tell me you wanted to spend time with your friends instead,” then as if realizing something, he knocked a fist on the side of his head and laughed airily. “Silly me. You did tell me. I was just too dumb to think I matter more than them”

In other situation, Minho would steel and persist his words of apologies until Seungmin’s flames of anger smothered out and huffed a surrendered nod, but at some point, his humourless laughs and the cross mention of his friends rubbed his half-buzzed brain in a certain way, slipping words out from his mouth in the heat of the moment.

“Why did you hate my friends so much?”

Seungmin gawked horridly at him, “We are talking about your friends now?”

“Yes. My friends that you so much as hate, because they make you feel bad” He turned around from his lover and heaved the same dry chuckles to the white ceiling up above. It lingered for hardly a few seconds before the bitterness marred to the tip of his tongue. Then he sighed loudly to the air, “But to be friends with Hwang Hyunjin? I’m surprised he never make you feel so bad about yourself”

He was dangerously teetering on a thin line, he knew, but when the name Hwang Hyunjin spilt from his tongue, the control he had over his frontal lobe and the Broca’s area of his brain muddled with a strong tug of jealousy, of insecurities, and he couldn’t stop but to warble his own projection of mind.

“Don’t go around, accusing people of looking down at you just because they are doing better than you!”

Minho didn’t realise he was holding his breath until the air hit his lungs, and just like that, the veil was lifted off. Everything seemed to hit in a high-speed, full-blown force. The weights of his scathing thoughtless remarks, the harsh timbre of his tone, and Kim Seungmin.

Stunned right in front of him, struggling to keep at bay the shock-stricken expression of his façade even when tears started to roll down his cheeks. Kim Seungmin must have held his breath too, because two seconds later he gasped for air and a muffled sob escaped from his throat in the process.

And that, was all Minho needed to snap him out from his reverie.

He charged forward, eyes unfocused and shaking, as he wrapped the frail body of Kim Seungmin into his arms. Caging him in, holding him close to the hammering heart in his cage in hope to quell his anguish, even while Seungmin strived to free himself, to recoil from his touch as if the tender kisses he planted on his cheeks to get rid of the tears were scorching painful red blisters on his skin instead.

At last, Seungmin’s hands fall limp by his side and Minho’s lips met the corner of his. “Let me go”

Minho couldn’t stop. Not when a horrendous rumination was dragging his mind, twisting his head with a foreboding premonition that if he stopped now then he really was going to lose Kim Seungmin.

So he kept going at it, to touch every inch of Seungmin’s skin with his own as he chased after the taste of his lips. To leave imprints of his soul on his body as he ground on his sensitive spot to hear the muffled whine from the back of his throat. To remind him that he loved him with all his might with showers of _I love you, I love you, I love_ , rendering all Seungmin’s pleas for him to _stop. Please, stop it, hyung_ futile.

A dejected whisper came up next, “Do whatever you want with me then, Hyung. The moment you did, you’ll never see me again after this”

His hands stopped abruptly on the plane of Seungmin’s back and the next thing he knew was that he was alone in the two-bedroom apartment, feeling so much colder when Seungmin walked out the door without a word, his head hanging low and his whole body shuddered with hiccups.

~

Minho draws in a long inhale breath and spits everything out in a single breath, “I’m sorry. About what I said, about forgetting the date, about the fights we had, about…everything. I was scared back then. Well, I– I was happy at first, that you find someone else that you can open up to other than me. But at some point, I got scared. I mean, there was only me before, so what if you have options? Would you pick me? Or would you rather pick him?

His voice barely a note up a whisper, “What if one day you decided that you no longer need me?”

That is… that’s a lot in Minho’s mind.

He, for one, wouldn’t be able to handle this turbulence of emotions on his own. Seungmin used to be the type of people who needs time for himself, who has to shut himself off from the world to apprehend, to make sense of things over and over in his head. He isn’t someone who could make use of ruthless and repetitive routine as the means to keep him sane.

His body moves on its own accord towards Lee Minho and his eyes seek at the hands holding tightly at the hand-rail. When he is granted a nod, he carefully reaches for Minho’s smaller hand and cradles it his own. “When I was seeing you, there’s only you, Hyung. I never knew Hyunjin liked me until a month before we broke up. He never said anything about it either”

“It doesn’t help that he is such a nice asshole, isn’t it?” A fond teasing smile is back on his face.

Seungmin responds with a mere snort but he holds tighter to the hand in his. “When I was at rock bottom in high school, you were there. You pull me out from the pathetic spirals I was living in. Back then, I thought that it was all I need, that I’ll be fine as long as you were there”

He chews lightly on his lips, “I should have fix myself first instead of depending on you. At the end of everything, I was insecure and jealous and it wore me out. I feel like a loser the whole time and–” 

“You are amazing, Kim Seungmin” interrupted Minho. He frees his hand from his grasp to thumb over his lips. A habit, a reflex he developed to stop Seungmin from worrying too hard over his lips. “You are beautiful, you are kind, you are funny and the most amazing man I’ve met”

“You said amazing twice, Hyung” Seungmin pokes back even though the words sufficiently warm the cockle of his heart. A cheeky grin spread across his face, “You’d say that a lot before. But thank you, it really makes me happy”

“You are too easy to please” Minho chortles and when it ceases to a fond smile, he regards him seriously and asks, “Are you happy now?”

It is a tough question, and isn’t that the trick of the mind?

Surely, he would feel happy on days when he woke up feeling refreshed after hours of quality sleep, or days when his draft was approved from the first meeting, or on weekends when he could spend his time reading a new book from his favourite authors. Opposite to the nights when he got off late from work, the rain was pouring heavily outside but he’d forgotten to bring his umbrella in the morning.

But Seungmin learnt to love the feeling of the cold droplets on his skin as time goes by. He’d grown to appreciate the humid smell of the rain that brought with him some sort of peace. Seungmin doesn’t spend his time scrutinize over himself when he made mistakes at work anymore. He learns from it and works harder to become better at it. Seungmin shares his happiness, opens up his sadness with loved ones and that is enough. He doesn’t need to be fixed and he is content with himself. 

“I can see the games by myself now,” is the answer he flits out.

“I’m glad” A proud smile briefly makes its way on Minho’s lips, before an amused grin takes it over with a raise of an eyebrow, “But tell me something, Seungmin. Does your mind-numbing, frankly boorish mating ritual with Hwang Hyunjin still going on?”

“What–”

“Turn around”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! This chapter is finally done! I struggled a lot with the last part of it, you should see the pages of paragraphs that didn't make the cut *sigh 
> 
> Also, some trivia.
> 
> [1] Dakgalbis 'warm hearts' series has the best office dynamics between Seungbin. Go check it out if you haven't yet!
> 
> [2] I initially wrote Hoshi as Changbin, but it gets super hard because I couldn't imagine the interactions they would have so yeah. Also, I got super-hooked with Seventeen when I started on this chapter thus, the results.
> 
> [3] I love using -chan as word of affection. Am I the only one? 
> 
> [4] Changbin, Wonwoo and Wooyoung are of same age. Yes, I make the rule. 
> 
> [5] A lot, and I mean a lot of the conversations in this chapter was from real life. 
> 
> [6] Did you get the Stranger Things reference?!?!  
> 
> 
> The last chapter would mention just a bit about their-break up but mostly a tooth-rooting fluff for Seungjin! ;'D

**Author's Note:**

> Gaaahhhhh! I had been writing this on-and-off for months now, and while the initial plan was to publish it as a complete work, I figured that I need that extra push. 
> 
> And letting it sunk inside a certain folder in my laptop did nothing to help. 
> 
> Also, tell me what references do you guys catch on!


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